


SCase

by Scedasticity



Series: Crossover Sburb Sessions [5]
Category: Homestuck, Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Alternate Universe - SBURB Fusion, throwing you in the homestuck deep end
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-09-19 23:44:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 31,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9465893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scedasticity/pseuds/Scedasticity
Summary: An apocalypse-causing computer game is certainlyhighlyimprobable, but, well.





	1. Chapter 1

**== > PROLOGUE**

In the dream, he woke up because someone was murdered and the body dumped just outside his bedroom window. 

It was Shinichi's bedroom, not the room Conan shared with Kogorou, except that Shinichi's bedroom hadn't been _all purple_ the last time he was there, and even if his mother had gotten whimsical enough to change that, she couldn't have put his room _alone at the top of a tower_ , overlooking a strange purple and black city. 

Also he was wearing unfamiliar purple pajamas. 

In the dream, it made perfect sense to hop out the window and hover down to the rooftop below where a solid black body was slowly leaking blood, and several other… people… were standing around wringing their hands. They were solid licorice black all over, without hair or visible ears or noses — like weird, abstract representations of people. They bled red, though. 

He solved the murder, of course. 

The Dersites — that was what they called themselves — were very appreciative. Then they suggested he might want to make himself scarce before they called the local constabulary, because the Agents didn't like the Heroes, and might try to hurt him. 

(He asked why they were calling him a hero. They stared at him blankly, and called him Heir of Time.)

Before Conan, he probably would have insisted on sticking around. After Conan, he could better appreciate a good-faith warning. Plus, his paranoia insisted he wanted to avoid licorice-black "Agents", even if the rest of the Dersites were equally black in color and obviously unconnected to any human Organizations. 

Besides, he could see the scene perfectly from his window. The Agents dragged the murderer away. One of them ranted angrily about "the slammer".

It was a very strange, but not unpleasant dream. 

It was stranger when he dreamed about the purple room above the purple city again. 

This time he got farther away before encountering a murder — floating felt natural. One of the Dersites had killed another over ownership of a Dersite coffee shop. Shinichi worked out what had happened while working his way through their menu. 

The Authority Regulator came to take custody of the murderer again. He gave Shinichi what was probably supposed to be a subtle wink, and then an even less subtle "You're an enemy of the realm, but solving Crimes makes you okay in _my_ book!"

He had a feeling the Authority Regulator's book had a lot of pictures and maybe some sound effects. But he still went with him to consult on several unsolved crimes. Er, Crimes. 

It still wasn't a _bad_ dream, but it wasn't the most restful night ever, either. He made sure not to sneak any coffee for a day. 

He still dreamed of the city again. 

There weren't any nearby murders this time, so he floated out of his tower and over to the others — there were six of them in all, including his. The nearest one held an empty, messy purple bedroom, but the second and third were occupied. He didn't go in past the windows, so he didn't see more of the occupants than lumps under blankets. The third room's tenant didn't stir even when he knocked a purple-tinted flowerpot off the windowsill to smash on the floor. 

The gun on the nightstand was _startling_ , all right? He was just as glad that sleeper hadn't awakened. 

But the fourth tower — he knew that room. That was (a purple version of) Ran's room, and that was Ran curled up on the bed in purple pajamas just like his. 

And when he blurted out her name, she opened her eyes and asked, "Shinichi?"

Because it was a dream, he just waved. "Hello, Ran."

She blinked at her purple room for a moment before turning back to Shinichi. "Are you… floating outside my window?"

"I can fly here," he said. "Your pajamas are the same as mine, so you probably can, too."

She flushed at the mention of pajamas, but then raised her chin. "All right then. We're going flying."

Ran _could_ fly, too. She insisted on seeing _his_ tower, since he'd seen hers, then they flew farther out over the city.

Then they witnessed a murder, of course, so he ended up introducing her to the Authority Regulator after all. She took down a fleeing culprit with karate. The Dersites nodded solemnly and said it was as expected from a Hero of Void.

He'd certainly had much worse dreams, so he didn't mind terribly much when they kept coming.

(And if Ran was smiling a bit more during the day, that was completely coincidental.)


	2. Prince of Breath: Wake

**== > PRINCE OF BREATH: WAKE**

But you... weren't asleep, were you?

Your father was holding a reception, and Koizumi Akako came to the house and said you were going to play a computer game with Nakamori Aoko, and you were going to say it was a bad time, but you didn't, you just went and loaded the game on your computer, and a patch she gave you, and started playing. And you just kept playing, even when the Nakamori house vanished and/or was hit by a meteor — Kuroba called Koizumi and yelled about it. Aoko was fine anyway, you could see her on the computer. You kept playing when Koizumi told Aoko she had to use the game to bring Kuroba into the "Medium", too. You just kept playing when…

…When some of the officers at the reception were going to leave to try to deal with the meteors all over Tokyo, and Koizumi stopped them. Somehow. Or stopped some of them? You remember Baaya trying to get past Koizumi into your room, and Koizumi ordering an officer to drag her out — what was going on?

And somewhere in there you have a vague memory of arguing with Hattori Heiji and Suzuki Sonoko, all of you wearing bright yellow pajamas. What?

And then Koizumi had been telling you to solve a strange glowing puzzle, and now...

Now you're standing in the parlor next to a large piece of strange equipment (alchemiter). The view out the windows is not your lawn. 

Your phone, on the coffee table, is connected and on speaker. You can tell from how it suddenly starts squawking "You bitch what did you do to me what sort of trick who are you—"

You don't see Koizumi. 

It's a relief when the house phone rings. You stumble out into the hall and pick up. "Moshi-moshi—"

"Hakuba!" Kuroba nearly shouts. "Okay, stay right where you are, we're coming to you. Watch out for monsters though."

"…Monsters?"

"Little imp things, just clock them with something heavy and they'll turn into grist."

"…What?"

"Just hang on and we'll be there in no time. Stay on the phone…"

"I can't," you say distantly. "I need to make sure Baaya is all right…"

"It isn't cordless? Dammit, Hakuba…"

Baaya is unconscious in the Western-style dining room, tied to a chair. So are several other women, at least one of them a police officer from Division One. SHE at least got herself halfway untied before falling unconscious.  

Koizumi did this somehow.

You wander outside to look for Kuroba and — whoever else "we" is. Probably Aoko. You are — somewhere else. Your house sits on a small rise surrounded by endless grassland, punctuated by occasional stone pillars. 

What. 

You're still staring blankly when a little amber-colored… creature… springs around the side of the house and attacks your knees. It sort of hurts. 

Something hits it from above, and it turns into a scattering of roundish, faceted objects too dull and… _unreal_ to be gems. 

"You could have at least _kicked_ it, tantei-san," Kuroba says. He sets down in something almost, but not quite, like KID's hang-glider; he's carrying Aoko, who is holding something vaguely similar to KID's card gun. And Kuroba has a black eye. 

This, at least, stirs something besides shock. "That's KID's…"

"No, this is the Hoverglider, and that is the Good Washing Mini-Mop-Gun," Kuroba says.

Aoko smacks him on the back of the head. " _This_ idiot _is_ KID, but there's no point in arguing about that now," she says. "Akako-chan said there were police officers here that Conan-kun might know, and he's very eager to know more."

"And we should probably verify that Akako passed out like everyone else did," Kuroba adds. "The way she stopped controlling you and the alcoholic, it seems likely, but… Well, if she didn't, maybe she can give us a few _answers_."

You don't think that's very likely.


	3. Note on entry sequence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unlike most of the other groups I've been doing, this one is rather far-flung and wouldn't all be obvious game-playing partners. So -- how did this happen?

Akako knows the game is coming — but she isn't quite an ordinary human, and because of all the things she is (mostly that she's done herself), she _can't play_. But she wants to live. So she concocts and distributes a "SPassengers" patch which she swears will improve the game experience 1000%… Several Prospit players are pointed at this patch by their dreams. The effect of the patch is that any non-players inside the residences that make entry will fall into a sort of stasis-sleep — they can't be awakened until the game is won, but the game also won't try to eliminate them as unwelcome interference.

Heiji is in fact the Space player, and as is usual for Space players, he's awake on Prospit a good while before the game — seeing bits of the future in clouds, meeting the locals, etc. However, he's totally in denial, and wouldn't have played if Kazuha didn't browbeat him into it. Kazuha is also awake, and isn't in denial, though there's still a lot she doesn't understand. She's discussed playing the game with fellow Prospit girls Sonoko and Aoko, who remember even less than she does, but enough to pursue both game and patch. The remaining Prospit dreamers are all the way asleep at this point.

Derse also has some pre-game activity. Shinichi woke up on Derse weeks before the game started but convinced himself it was just a dream, even after hearing Ran talk about her corresponding dreams after his dreamself accidentally woke up her dreamself. (He almost immediately became the darling of ground-level Derse law enforcement for his case-solving abilities, and the Authority Regulator is his friend for _life_. Higher-ups are, of course, not so impressed.) Kaito has been awake a little longer, but thinks it's vivid dreams. The rest of the Derse dreamers are still asleep.

The day of the release comes! Three games start independently:

1\. Kazuha as Heiji's server player

2\. Sonoko as Ran's server player

3\. Akako controlling Hakuba as Aoko's server player

Since Kaito is right next door to Aoko, he's in danger from her meteor, too, so she has to multitask her own entry with

4\. Aoko as Kaito's server player

which must have been an interesting fact-finding experience.

Meanwhile, Shinichi is freaking out over the Mouris' vanishing and the meteor strike, only reassured by being able to contact Ran on the phone, and totally ignoring the top-secret strategy meeting he _had_ been hosting. Ran wants to bring Conan in, but gets distracted when she finds her parents can't be woken, and then the computer freezes when she's trying to install the server program. Technically Shinichi _could_ wait, he's not in imminent danger, but he wants to follow Ran, so he manages to convince Haibara to humor him.

5\. Haibara as Shinichi's server player

Never mind he's now got a bunch of unconscious FBI agents (and one CIA agent) in his living room. But then, of course, Haibara, in addition to being upset/angry that any of this is _real_ , _is_ now in imminent danger (along with Agasa and the Detective Boys, who are in the house). Shinichi tries to call Heiji to get him to bring her in, but can't get through — Heiji is busy trying to defend his parents' comatose dinner party from imps, and he and Kazuha have their phones thoroughly tied up. So, Shinichi gambles on Sera.

6\. Sera as Haibara's server player

While all this is going on, Ran finally gets her server player software running. Before Shinichi/Conan disentangles himself from phone calls with Haibara and Sera, Ran gets a call from Azusa — she and "Tohru" don't have anyone to connect with them, can she help? Of course she can help.

7\. Ran as Rei's server player

Shinichi is less than thrilled to hear about this. Also, by this time he has worked out that his Land isn't the same as Ran's Land, and with some consultation with Sherlocksprite (don't ask) figures out the best thing to do is for him to be Sonoko's server player; that way it should be relatively straightforward for Ran to come to him, once they get to that point? He's certainly not about to invite Bourbon to be _Sera's_ server player, even though that way would make things easier for him to go to Ran.

8\. Shinichi (as Conan) as Sonoko's server player

Sera (in Shukichi's house) is going to need an evac very soon. Heiji would be willing to and Shinichi trusts him with it, and they've finally gotten in touch, but (a) he doesn't have the server program running, and (b) if he did he would use it for Kazuha, who also needs an evac. Shinichi is getting desperate, and calls both Eisuke and the phone he left with KID. KID doesn't pick up, as Kaito is fighting underlings and having certain discussions necessitated by a server player's view of his house. Eisuke does. It's decided Kazuha's evac is marginally more urgent, and Sera would rather wait for Heiji then have someone she doesn't know with Mary in the building.

9\. Eisuke as Kazuha's server player

When Heiji gets his server program running after that, Sera's next.

10\. Heiji as Sera's server player

Shortly afterwards Kaito calls back, wanting to know if Conan has any insights on what the hell is going on. This is useful, as it turns out Eisuke will also need an evac, despite being in another country. Kaito agrees quickly, partially because he's hoping his mom can make it to Eisuke's apartment in time. (As it happens, she can — and so can the Kudos, surreally.)

11\. Kaito as Eisuke's server player

And finally, Kaito asks if they know anyone who hasn't used their server program, because even if Akako can ward off meteors indefinitely Hakuba and the houseful of police officers his father was meeting with would probably prefer to be _elsewhere_. Conan dubiously suggests Bourbon, but of course Akako can deal with him with no difficulty.

12\. Rei as Hakuba's server player


	4. Notes

Shinichi is **Heir of Time** , Derse dreamer, in the **Land of Steam and Watches**. Consorts are frilled lizards. Ai prototyped his sprite with a first-edition Sherlock Holmes and created Sherlocksprite. Even when they're all in the incipisphere, he tries not to tell Ran the truth about Conan, even going so far as to try to claim, as Conan, to be a Prospit dreamer — this backfires when Kazuha and Sonoko both explain they know who all the Prospit dreamers are and Conan isn't one of them. Eventually he ascends and can't even try to lie anymore, not without saying Conan died, and he can't do that to her.

Ran is **Page of Void** , Derse dreamer, **Land of Ghosts and Secrets**. She is _not_ very keen on her Land, although her consorts — chinchillas — are nice enough. Her sprite is the happy sea cucumber from the charm on her phone. By the time Shinichi ascends, she isn't very surprised. The no-dreamself-for-Conan and no-non-dream-self-for-Shinichi were pretty, er, obvious, combined with all the suspicions she's had before. She doesn't waste any time with recriminations and does any crying in private. In public, she just goes out and karates her way through three ogres, a giclops, and two basilisks.

Ai is **Witch of Blood** , Derse dreamer, **Land of Glass and Heartbeats**. She's not very keen on her Land, either. The consorts being white rats does not help at all. Oddly, KamenYaibasprite kind of does. When she finds out Conan's dreamself if Shinichi, she hires an Agent to assassinate her own dreamself — she can still go god tier if necessary, but hopefully this way she will not return to adult form. No one else is very impressed with this reasoning, but she considers it impeccable.

Kaito is **Bard of Light** , Derse dreamer, **Land of Masks and Mirrors**. (Yes, Kaito, I like you, but you're the Bard.) Consorts are (North American) raccoons; his sprite is a dove. He's actually a lot more relieved than he expected to have the KID thing out in the open. Aoko hasn't taken it too badly, there's no chance of being arrested, and everyone has bigger things to worry about, and now he doesn't have to lie. After Kaito goes god tier, he tends to run around in KID costume most of the time instead of the default god tier outfit; it's not any more attention-catching, and like hell is he wearing that codpiece where anyone can see.

Rei/Tohru/Bourbon is **Thief of Rage** , Derse dreamer **Land of Labyrinths and Sand**. Consorts are gila monsters. His sprite up and vanished immediately after entry, no one has seen it since, and there's some suspicion the second prototyping was Vermouth. He didn't want to play at all — he only had the game because Azusa wanted to play — and while he's trying to find some way to work things to his advantage he really feels like he's awake as a mistake. But since he _is_ awake… He strongly suspects that one of the 'passengers' is Akai, especially given how hard Conan's trying to keep him from being alone with any of them but Azusa. He's trying to work out which. (…This situation may be responsible for at least one dreamself resurrection/god tier ascension.)

Rounding out the Derse dreamers is Sera, who is **Mage of Mind** , **Land of Towers and Hurdles**. Consorts are dwarf emus, sprite is a saltshaker from Shukichi's kitchen. She's trying very hard not to let anyone see how pleased she is to have her family all together, even if the rest of them are all currently unwakeable. (Under the circumstances, Shinichi told her about Subaru.) Most importantly, she can't give anything away to Bourbon. She distracts herself by enacting petty revenge on Kaito. (It can't be more than petty revenge, because Aoko has made a convincing argument that she's the only one with a right to kill him, and if she decides not to, no one else can either.)

On to Prospit, Heiji is **Knight of Space** , **Land of Reeds and Frogs**. He's still incredulous about the frogs. He also gets defensive if he feels like other people are questioning his frog-breeding competence. There's backseat frog-breeding coming from all corners, especially Ai. His regular assistance is Kazuha. Consorts are foxes, and it's a pain to keep them off the frogs. Not sure what his sprite is — nothing very exciting, I don't think.

Kazuha is **Rogue of Hope** , **Land of Song and Saga**. At least to start with she's less angry about the game than a lot of them; all the people who are most important to her are safe, and her Prospit dreams gave her lots of warm fuzzy all-is-as-it-should-be vibes. And she enjoys frog-catching with Heiji. Her own consorts are salamanders, not sure about the sprite.

Sonoko is **Maid of Life** , **Land of Stones and Trees**. Sonoko still harbors dreams of finding the game's distributors and kicking them in the groin. Her consorts are squirrels. She has Jirokichisprite, which is… interesting. It's decided that Jirokichi's property where she entered is the best choice for fortifying into a safe place to leave all the 'passengers', so she's busy dealing with everyone coming and going with that for a while. When not busy, though, she is a ruthless echeladder-climber.

Hakuba is **Prince of Breath** , **Land of Steppes and Obelisks**. He's initially pretty occupied dealing with post-Akako trauma, but is pleasantly surprised that Kaito and Aoko both identify him as _theirs_ and step in to support him. He's not very good at the game aspects. His sprite was also prototyped with a first edition Sherlock Holmes book, and is also Sherlocksprite, but it doesn't get along with Shinichi's Sherlocksprite. No one's sure why exactly. Consorts are chevrotains (mini deer).

Aoko is **Sylph of Heart** , **Land of Waves and Auroras**. Consorts are turtles, sprite is a Prince Prince figurine. She got over, or at least got past, the KID revelation faster than most people would have predicted. Kaito got a black eye when he showed up on her planet, but then a hug, and conditional forgiveness if they all survived this. Was this because she knew or suspected more than she admitted before? We may never know.

Eisuke is **Seer of Doom** , **Land of Lines and Needles**. Consorts are nakkodiles who drive him up the wall; sprite is a Mickey Mouse figurine. He is _so relieved_ that Hidemi is present, he didn't even dare to hope for it. He feels awkward, like everyone else knows each other better and he's just the weird clumsy kid. He's the first to go god tier deliberately.

 

God tier outfits:


	5. Be the Sylph of Heart

**== > SYLPH OF HEART: COMPREHEND**

You don't linger over the secret room — _rooms_ — when you first slide through it with the server controls, because there's a _meteor_ coming and no matter what Kaito has in his house you don't want him to _die_. You just deploy the equipment and make sure he prototypes and enters like he needs to.

When that's done and he's exploring — and verifying that the old man he called Jii-chan won't wake up any more than your father will — you go back and check the room again.

A lot of it's probably older than Kaito is, you can see that immediately. It's not like he could have been KID when he was eight anyway.

Kaito is KID.

Bakaito.

But he can't have been KID before. The first KID. But the first KID operated out of his house then, so… Toichi. Which really answers _why_ as far as Kaito is concerned.

 _Bakaito_. 

You hit yourself in the face with a pillow a few times, then trudge down to where your dad is slumped unconscious in his favorite chair.

"Good news, Dad," you say. "I found Kaitou KID." Unsurprisingly, he doesn't respond. "The bad news is it's Kaito." You pause, and think about it. "Well, it's Kaito, and also the Earth is being destroyed by meteors, and Akako-chan seems to be controlling Hakuba-kun's mind for some reason."

That _does_ put things in perspective.

An imp tries to attack your dad, and you smash it with the kitchen mop.

**== > SYLPH OF HEART: CONFRONT**

The hang-glider Kaito comes through the gate in, carrying Jii, isn't quite KID's trademark — he must have a more utilitarian one for _reconnaissance_ or something. It's still a bit more of a giveaway than he'd usually — no, than he _ought_ to show in front of you. He's done more obvious things before.

Like using a _card gun_ on underlings.

 _Bakaito_.

He gets the hang-glider off, and you help him haul Jii down through your unnaturally stretched-up house to where you've barricaded your dad into the sitting room. You take out the imps trying to break in with your mop, then shift the kitchen table aside, proceed in, and get Jii settled in the other easy chair.

Only then does Kaito turn to you, nervously scratching the back of his head. "So, uh. I got the Hondou kid into the game — and my mom was there, which is great, but uh — I don't think I'd thought about how much a server player could see, before."

"Bakaito, did you think I was building onto your house without seeing what I was doing?"

"I think I, uh, didn't think." He laughs nervously. "So, uh…"

"Not going to try to lie your way out of it this time? Maybe drug me?"

He cringes, which is all the admission you need. _Bakaito_.

You punch him in the face. He staggers back, but doesn't fall — you do better with something _in_ your hands, really. Before he can really react more, you pull him into a hug. " _Bakaito_ ," you mutter. "I'm still really mad at you. But I'm more happy you're alive, especially — especially—" Especially when so many, _most_ people _aren't_ , you can't bring yourself to say. "If we survive this I'll forgive you."

**== > SYLPH OF HEART: COMPROMISE**

"Okay, you can hit him," you concede.

"Ahoko!" Kaito yelps from behind you. "She kicks like a damn mule!"

"You should've thought of that before you stole her clothes, Bakaito!"

"I didn't think she'd get so mad about it! I thought she was a guy!"

Sera-san growls. "Stop hiding behind your girlfriend, KID!"

"He's _not_ my boyfriend!" you correct hastily. (Not that you haven't thought about it—)

"Like I would date someone so—"

"If you want to keep hiding behind me I suggest you _not finish that sentence_."

"Yes, ma'am, Ahoko-sama."

 _Grrrrrrrrr_. "You stole her clothes and said she looked like a man, you deserve worse than a punch."

"I _got_ worse than a punch! I got two loose teeth and a mild concussion!"

All right, that's a fair point. "You can punch him, but don't _injure_ him, all right? He's good at this game, we all need him, and I'm not done with him yet."

"Thanks _loads_ , Ahoko."

"You _should_ be thanking her, you bastard—"

" _No non-superficial injuries_ ," you emphasize. "His brain's damaged enough as it is."

" _Hey_!"


	6. Passengers

**== > HEIR OF TIME: PLAN**

The underlings don't try to _attack_ the sleeping people so much as _vandalize_ them. James Black and Camel got shoved under furniture for some reason. Kogorou and Eri got the good sake poured all over them. Your father got doodled on. Heiji's parents got stepped on when the imps were raiding the table. A basilisk tried to sneak up on Hakuba through the dining room filled with helpless police officers, and you're just lucky KID was there and heard it coming before it had more then its head in.

Probably worst of all, the imps _and consorts_ keep trying to _steal_ the kids. (The rat Haibara caught trying to carry Mitsuhiko away insisted it was because they were cute, but Haibara has dire suspicions that the consorts really want to experiment on them. You think she may be judging them a bit harshly, but agree it's best not to take chances.)

Between that, and Bourbon's worryingly missing sprite, you decide it might be smartest to gather all the helpless passengers together where you can trade off guarding them. 

You can rule out anyone playing from an apartment immediately, so not Eisuke, Ran, Sera, or Bourbon — ha, like _that_ was happening.

So. Your house. Pros: five people already there, good solid structure to build on, server player is Haibara and you trust her. Cons: you sort of don't want all the other players wandering around your house, and you can't very well forbid everyone from visiting. Maybe your house?

Agasa's house. Pros: four people already there, good solid structure to build on, server player is Sera and she's competent. Cons: Haibara wants everyone wandering around even less than you do, Sera's on your side but there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Probably not Agasa's house.

KID's — Kuroba's — house. Pros: apparently he has a secret KID room already that must be some sort of secure. Cons: nobody is currently there (except the doves), you don't know the server player well at all, and in fairness he probably wants people wandering around less than you do, although maybe not less than Haibara. Not Kuroba's house.

Nakamori Aoko's house. Pros: two people already there (one of them originally at KID's). Cons: server player is Hakuba, who you're not sure knows how to secure a place, and most of the early building was done under control of that… Koizumi person, who may have done who knows what. Not Nakamori's house.

Heiji's house. Pros: five people already there. Cons: traditional house, not very suitable for fortifying, half the interior panels have been wrecked by underlings already. Not Heiji's house.

Kazuha's house. Pros: server player is Eisuke, who you pretty much trust to know what he's doing. Cons: nobody currently there. Maybe Kazuha's house?

Hakuba's house. Pros: over a dozen people already there (Megure and Takagi and Satou and _Kobayashi-sensei_ as Shiratori's plus-one, at least the kids would have one more adult they trusted), good solid structure. Cons: server player is Bourbon, who has probably figured out Akai is around somewhere. (You don't think Bourbon would kill all the passengers just to get Akai, but you'd rather Akai stay alive, too.) Not Hakuba's house.

Jirokichi's manor. Pros: practically a fortress already, close to a dozen people there already, Jirokichisprite had proven eminently capable of defending them, you're the server player, Sonoko doesn't care about people wandering around. Cons: Jirokichisprite.

So… Jirokichi's manor it is.

Now you just have to figure out how to get about _forty people_ there. (And a cat, and some doves.)

**== > KNIGHT OF SPACE: LOGISTICS!**

You can get to any Land from any other Land via a two-transportalizer route through a Veil meteor. There's a bit of a hike from the Land transportalizer end to the house, generally — apparently Ran's is right on top of it for some reason — but more problematically, it's really hard to carry someone via transportalizer. You can do a fireman's carry if you're careful, but anyone you're dragging, or carrying with someone else? Forget it.

So the kids — not a problem. Ran carries Mitsuhiko, Kazuha carries Ayumi, and you heave Genta over your shoulder for the trek through Haibara's creepy lab-like LOGAH, transportalize, meteor, transportalize, trek through Sonoko's LOSAT — which is actually quite pleasant if you ignore the underlings and occasional harassment from the squirrel-consorts. Sera carries that weird mysterious Mary kid herself.

The adult women and average-sized men — manageable. You, KID, Ran, Kazuha, Hakuba, Sera, and Bourbon, and any of the more helpful sprites, can all manage an over-the-shoulder carry at least long enough for the transportalizer jumps, and get help on either end if necessary. (Kudou stands around silently seething at his own lack of upper body strength.) You could have done without wading through half an hour of marsh in your LORAF, but you get your mother to safety, and that's more important. (Ran wants to know what Jodie-sensei was doing in Shinichi's house; Kudou fails to come up with a satisfactory explanation fast enough and just claims not to know.)

Particularly tall or stocky men, though — even with the sprites being able to carry them, there's an unacceptable risk of something hanging over the transportalizer boundary and getting cut off. _That_ is going to be a problem.

"The second gates don't have a size limit," KID says, as you're standing around the manor watching new walls materialize. "That's how I can fly the hoverglider through doing a princess-carry."

You raise an eyebrow. "You volunteering to carry Agasa-hakase on your hangglider — hoverglider."

"Oh hell no," he says with feeling, not that you blame him. "I have an idea for a—"

But at that point Sera arrives and spots KID and the discussion has to be postponed.

**== > BARD OF LIGHT: MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR!**

You've got a face full of bruises (one from Aoko, two from tantei-chan), an alchemized hovercar full of room (and two large FBI agents and a skinnier guy in an excellent mask), and a passenger seat full of scowling, uninvited chibi-tantei.

"Why do you even have a flying car?" he demands, as you lift off from the ground outside the Kudou mansion and circle up, wobbling as you compensate for LOSAW's jets of steam.

"Because I alchemized it, tantei-kun, why do you think? Why are you coming along, it's not like you could help load or unload people."

He just scowls harder. His motivations _probably_ have something to do with the skinniest of the passengers from his house, the masked guy, who really _could_ have been transported some other way. Tantei-kun wants to supervise a little more closely, for some reason. You are not going to ask.

"FBI agents, mystery men, and chibi-tanteis, we are now leaving Land of Steam and Watches airspace and entering the Land of Glass and Heartbeats."

You never said anything about not _teasing_.

"On your left you will see a bunch of weird transparent towers apparently filled with blood, on your right you will see more of the same, and directly below us if the house outside of which it looks like the Witch of Blood is waiting with our next passenger…"

You're glad the professor is outside already, but it really would be nice to have someone else there to provide _significant_ people-moving help. Hakuba, Hattori, Mouri, even Sera would be better than tantei-kun. Seriously, the least he could do is help push people from side to side in the back to balance the weight better.

You don't have to set down on LOTAH, which is sort of a relief even though you know Sera probably still isn't there. You do have to land on LORAF, can't find a dry-looking patch, and end up on the roof, which creaks alarmingly as Hattori heaves his father and another Osaka cop out to the car.

There are way too many cops around, even if all of them are unconscious.

No stop on the next four — LOSAS never had any passengers, LOLAN's were carry-able (just barely, in Kudou's father's case), and you already moved Jii and Nakamori-keibu as far as LASAO. (You thought Hakuba's was the obvious place to stash the passengers, since there were so many there already, but tantei-kun's argument of 'unreliable server player' was convincing.) Just come through the gate, circle once, back through the gate. Be sure to squint when entering LOMAM, in case it's a bright day.

LASAO's going to be the tough one. There are just so many people.

**== > MAID OF LIFE: BE AN EXCELLENT HOST**

…

**== > MAID OF LIFE: PUT UP WITH ALL OF THIS IDIOCY**

That's better.

It's been a long couple of days. The game was not what you thought it would be. You blame yourself for getting Ran into it, even though rationally you know she wouldn't be any better off if she _weren't_. Your uncle contrived to get himself prototyped for some reason. The rest of your family is unconscious. Your boyfriend is unconscious. Which is to be expected, but _still_. And Kaitou KID is here, but he's your age instead of a mysterious older man and has a "childhood friend".

And now, to add insult to injury, Conan-kun has been using all your hard-won grist "properly fortifying" your uncle's manor for the safe storage of all the unconscious people. Your unclesprite is alternating between complaining about the implication that the manor wasn't safe to start with and collaborating with the little brat in coming up with more and more elaborate tricks and traps.

Not that either of them managed to think of putting in anything for all the sleeping people to _lie on_!

Ran joins you in surveying the smooth stone walls and floor of the innermost safe room (why it still has multiple entrances you do not know). "Well, it… seems very secure, what with the maze and everything. Just sort of… um…"

"Sort of _completely_ not something I'd put my unconscious mother on," you finish. "Ugh! Come on, Ran, we'll get pillows off the sofas and blankets from… somewhere. We can tear down the curtains if we have to."

Ripping something up might make you feel better.


	7. Crisis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning on this chapter for temporary character death and some violence and blood.
> 
> I'm not as happy with the third part of this, but I think it did need to go with the others, so. Enjoy?

**== > SEER OF DOOM: TRIP**

Seriously, you've been trying very hard to _avoid_ that, especially in front of anyone else. It was bad enough when your server player suggested you take up tumbling to work on your balance and ability to fall safely. You're just lucky he was persuaded to stop calling you "clumsy-san". (Or ordered to stop, rather; Aoko-san is very kind. If somewhat intimidating.)

Tripping in front of your server player _in person_ \-- he's across the room, fussing over baskets of sleeping doves -- would be bad enough, but you're even less interested in making a fool of yourself in front of Sera-san (you'd like her to think well of you), Haibara-san (she'd find it funny), or Amuro-san (you're not sure what's going on with him, but Conan doesn't completely trust him and all three other conscious people in the room are keeping one eye on him even though he's not doing anything but moping over his unconscious maybe-girlfriend). There will be no tripping.

Besides, it's hard to trip when you're kneeling on the floor beside Hidemi-neesan. She looks -- so much less stressed, than she did that last, brief time you met. You wonder if, if you beat the game -- no, you can't think that way, _when_ you beat the game. Anyway, you wonder if the passengers will wake up well-rested. You hope you get a chance to find out. 

"Well," you sigh finally, "I suppose those imps aren't going to hunt themselves..."

As you get up, you are suddenly hit with a feeling of overwhelming dread. 

You stumble. 

You fall right on top of the unconscious FBI agents, and avoid kicking your sister in the face, just. But one of your hands hits Kudou's mystery houseguest in the face, and that's not skin under your fingers, it's something tearing away. "What the--"

Haibara facepalms. Sera's expression looks suddenly brittle. KID just tsks. "A flexible mask like that has to be _maintained_ , even if you aren't moving much. I could try to repair it but replacing would be better--"

_BANG_

KID falls. Sera swears aloud and dives for cover--

_BANG_

\--red blossoming on her shoulder showing she wasn't quite fast enough. You turn around, shocked, to see Amuro _holding a gun_ \-- he's aiming at--

_BANG_

**== > MAGE OF MIND: WAKE**

You gasp awake in a purple replica of your last hotel room before the game. Derse. You're on Derse. Your dreamself. The fucker must have kissed you after he shot you, ew. 

KID shoots into your window, ricocheting off the frame. "That asshole shot me in the head!"

You remember that. He shot KID first, then you in the shoulder as you dodged, then Hondou in the chest, then pistol-whipped Haibara in the back of the head, then finished you off — leaving him alone with a bunch of unconscious people unless Sonoko gets back in time, and he'll probably just shoot her, too. 

He's going to kill Shuuichi. Right after you got him back. Unless you can stop him. 

"Did you check the other towers?"

"Just tantei-kun's — he's not there. We could try Mouri-san's, or see if we could wake Bourbon up here to stop him from whatever he's doing there, or there's about five minutes' flight to a three-transportalizer route back to LOSAT, overland after that."

"Transportalizers," you reply grimly. "Ran-san will be out looking for Kudou-kun, and Bourbon wouldn't have sent us here and left his dreamself easily accessible. He's too smart for that."

"Fine, this way." 

He doesn't try to take your hand or your arm, which you appreciate, even though it means you have to learn to high-speed aerially navigate around buildings rather quickly as you descend to the maze of streets on Derse's moon. 

"I don't know about smart," KID says just before landing on the first transportalizer. You follow him to somewhere just as purple — must be Derse itself — and race on. "If tantei-kun doesn't kill him Aoko will."

"That's if _I don't get him first_. If he's hurt Shuu-nii—" You break off, not wanting to show too much vulnerability.

"Yeah, well, I just hope he got Hondou, too — I assume he did get Hondou? I figure if he was willing to kiss me he'd probably kiss Hondou, but…"

"I was trying to _forget_ the kiss part, thanks loads!"

"Sorry, tantei-chan, it's not my favorite mental image either." Second transportalizer. 

Looks like the interior of a meteor lab. " _Don't_ call me that."

"Tantei-hime?"

You roll your eyes and don't bother arguing with that one. Big circle of transportalizers, follow KID to the one with Sonoko's hero symbol, and you're back on the Land of Stones and Trees. 

Even living in your dreamself, you can still fly. Convenient. You make for Sonoko's "house" at top speed. KID follows a little slower, and does not manage to prevent you from crashing through a window. It was an open window, and you hit the heavy velvet curtains, so you're not hurt and it wasn't too noisy. Good enough. Downstairs. 

Sonoko is screaming. 

You reach the maze, and let KID take the lead, figuring he'll probably head for somewhere other than the 'front' route everyone memorized. You figure right. KID brings you to the "safe room" at the _side_ entrance, fully _behind_ Bourbon. There are still only three dead bodies — you're in time.

Bourbon has his gun out. Sonoko is backed into a corner, white-faced and screaming, Jirokichisprite hovering protectively in front of her. If she sees you, she doesn't give it away that you can see. Ran — when did she get here? — is standing in the middle of the 'front' doorway, and seems to be about to gamble that Bourbon won't shoot her if she comes farther into the room. That is not a gamble you would make. 

KID grimaces at the scene. "I have a smoke bomb," he whispers. "On three?"

You decide you'll ask why his dreamself has smoke bombs later, nod sharply, and hold up three fingers. Two — one — _go_.

The smoke bomb hits. You hit half a second later — not his head, not first, but his gun hand. _Then_ his head. 

As soon as Bourbon's down, KID materializes (probably not literally) at your side, pulling a long rope of silk scarves out of… somewhere. You let him do the tying-up, and spin to make sure your family is… all right…

Your body is lying crumpled across Shuuichi's legs. It looks like the exit wound splattered your whole family with—

You struggle not to throw up, then change your mind, turn around, and throw up on Bourbon.

"Don't look at your body," you advise KID. He got shot in the head, it's probably even worse. He loses all color (except the fading bruises) even at the thought. 

"Sera-chan!" Ran cries. "And Kuroba-kun. You're all right!"

"Alive, anyway," KID says, pointedly not looking at any of the bodies. "I assume Suzuki-san called you?"

Sonoko has stopped screaming and is gulping back sobs. "Y-yes. That — that — ooooooh!" She stumbles past Jirokichisprite to kick Bourbon in the ass. "He said he wouldn't shoot me if I didn't interfere, like I was going to just _stand_ there—"

Ran seems to be uninterested in vengeance and has gone to check on Haibara instead. "I didn't have time for much, but I did text Shinichi."

In that case… yeah, you hear a skateboard ricocheting around maze corners now. 

" _Ran_!" Conan leaps off the skateboard as it shoots into the room from the 'back' entrance, and kicks a soccer ball midair — at Bourbon, you and Sonoko and KID all have to dive out of the way. "…-neechan. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Conan-kun, but Ai-chan is hurt and Sera-chan, Hondou-kun, and Kuroba-kun…"

"Had dreamself resurrections," you finish. "We came back here from Derse."

"We just hope he got Hondou, too," KID says again. "He's a Prospit dreamer so we don't—" His head snaps towards the 'front' entrance. "Don't come in, Aoko!" he calls, stumbles to his feet, and goes to stop her before she can.

You decide to eavesdrop instead of looking at the bodies any more. You'll deal with it… later.

"Kaito! You're — oh. You're your dreamself. Hondou-kun said that was probably what happened, but…"

"Oh, good. Yeah, we all got dreamself-resurrected, and apparently he didn't manage to kill the guy he wanted to kill, so apart from all three of us victims and Suzuki-san being traumatized for life, I guess no harm done?"

"Except Ai-chan hasn't woken up," Ran says sharply. "…I think she should have, by now. If you don't wake from head injuries quickly…"

Conan looks a little ill. "…She doesn't have a dreamself left." But then his spine straightens. "KID, Sera-san, you got here from Derse's moon, can you get back quickly? You need to take Haibara into the core of the moon, to her Sacrificial Slab, until she either wakes up or… doesn't, and ascends. I think that should work. It's supposed to work. I'll call Hattori and Hakuba and we'll start… cleaning up here, Sonoko-neechan. We can decide what to do about this when Haibara's back with us."

Always good for a plan, Conan-kun. You consider pointing out he's really failing to not act like Shinichi, but decide that secret is as good as blown anyway. "That sounds sensible." You go and carefully take Haibara from Ran's arms. "KID, you're my guide. Come on."

"Oh, one thing," Conan says as you're heading to the door. "Do either of you have any… preferences… about what we should do with… your… the…"

"I just don't want to see it," you say honestly. "Burn it if you can, I guess, but… I just don't want to see it."

"What she said," KID says from the hall. "You don't want to see it either, Ahoko, it's nasty. Just don't let Jirokichisprite pretend to have captured it or anything."

**== > THIEF OF RAGE: FACE THE MUSIC**

You failed. 

You shot three teenagers at close range -- and for all you told yourself it wouldn't matter because they'd resurrect, it matters. The look on the Hondou kid's face when he realized what was happening is going to haunt you. So is the crack when the gun hit Haibara's head and she went down like a broken doll. You're mostly sure she's Sherry, the same deal as Conan, but you still didn't mean to seriously hurt her. 

And after all that, you wasted time like an absolute idiot trying to _wake him up_. You had some vague idea of not wanting him to die unaware of why he had to die, and even considered taunting him with his little sister's death (after all, _he_ didn't know it was temporary!). You were still trying to wake him when that damn Jirokichisprite flew in and started throwing a fit, followed shortly afterwards by Sonoko. It all went downhill from there. 

Now you're waking up tied to a chair. Your face feels like one huge bruise, and the rest of your head feels like you have a hangover.

"We know you're awake, stop faking!" a girl snaps.

For a moment you think you're seeing double, but no -- it's Ran standing next to the Nakamori girl. The Nakamori girl has a white-knuckle grip on a mop and looks homicidal. Ran just looks disappointed in you. Ouch. At the room's door -- you must be somewhere else in the Suzuki house -- Hattori is leaning on the doorframe, scowling at you. 

"He's awake," Hattori calls over his shoulder, then comes in, everyone else following. 

Kuroba's in Derse pajamas. He doesn't look at you straight on, just goes to the Nakamori girl and persuades her to follow him to a couch on the other side of the room. The blond half-British detective joins them, dropping down on the other side to put _Kuroba_ between them, much to the thief's evident surprise. Hakuba joins the Nakamori girl in _glaring_ at you. 

Sera doesn't bother to glare, just stomps in and straddles the chair at the writing desk. She must have stopped for clothes somewhere. Hattori's girlfriend takes the second couch, and Suzuki and, after a moment, Ran join her. 

You're just starting to worry that you did more damage than you thought when Haibara comes in, wearing a full skirt, striped socks, a weird two-pronged hood, and a shirt decorated with a bright red slash. Hondou follows in a dark green robe, with a sort of skull symbol decoration. Are those… god tier?

Finally, Conan comes in and stands in the middle of the room. He takes a deep breath, then glances at Ran and freezes. When he does speak, his voice has gone up half an octave. "Why don't you tell them what we deduced, Heiji-niisan?"

Personally you think it's been a lost cause since he failed to do anything to establish the Conan persona as a Prospit dreamer besides making the claim to Ran. You gather he was almost religiously avoiding her after that, but you guess crises are crises.

Hattori coughs. "Well, uh. This guy, call him Amuro or Bourbon or whoever, holds a personal grudge against Akai Shuuichi, an' now thinks Subaru Okiya is Akai in disguise."

"You're not seriously trying to claim he's _not_?" you say incredulously. "I got a good look at his face! And it _wasn't_ a second mask! I checked."

Hattori shrugged. "Y'can say that all you want, but it's not _relevant_. What's—"

"I do beg your pardon, Hattori-san," Hakuba cuts in. "But I believe it _is_ relevant. It means he was not certain until he checked, by which point he had already shot three people and cracked a fourth's skull, on suspicion alone."

"Yeah, well, we're not sayin' it would've been okay even if he just walked in when no one else was around and shot the guy," Hattori shoots back.

"No, of course not, but the way he acted before achieving confirmation shows very poor judgment."

Ugh. _Kids_. Always so sure they knew everything. "It was the only chance I was going to get!"

"Both of you shut up, I'm not done!" Hattori orders. "Okay, he thinks he's found Akai, so to clear out interference he shot the other players in the room, except for Haibara, who he knew didn't have a dreamself. He did the kiss resurrection—"

" _Trying_ to forget that," Sera snipes.

"—So we hafta conclude, he didn't want to — _permanently_ kill anyone except Akai, and he probably still wants to be a productive player. But, on the other hand, he did temporarily kill four people—"

"You cracked my skull and caused bleeding in my brain," Haibara informs you.

All you can think to say is, "I specifically tried to avoid killing you, because your dreamself is dead."

"At least you don't have your body lying around somewhere," Sera says.

"Not _somewhere_ ," Sonoko corrects. "Lying around _in our wine cellar_."

"Didn't need to know that," Kuroba mutters.

"But how did that make Hondou-kun go god tier, and Sera-chan and Kuroba-kun only resurrect?" Hattori's girlfriend asks.

"It didn't," Hakuba says. "After informing me and Aoko-san of the situation, he insisted upon traveling to the moon's core and… sacrificing himself… on his Sacrificial Slab."

Apparently not everyone had been informed of this yet, as there are some horrified gasps. Hondou lifts his chin stubbornly. "All this happened because I fell because I had a feeling of intense foreboding. I'm meant to be the Seer of Doom. I'm hoping god tier will help me actually control whatever this is." 

"That's an _awful_ power—"

"I'm _not done yet_!" Hattori bellows. "All right. We have two options. We put him on probation, someone has to watch him, he's not allowed to come back here."

That's… reasonable. You can work with that. "What's the other option? _You_ kill _me_?"

"The other option is, I talk to the White Queen, an' we throw you in jail on Prospit until the endgame."

…You hadn't actually thought they'd come up with another option.

Before it comes to a vote, Sonoko proposes a third option — that you be locked up on Prospit temporarily, for as long as it takes everyone to clean up all the evidence of your 'little rampage' off the stonework _and people_. Okay you hadn't even thought about that aftereffect. Then Sera says you can be locked up until you swear never to try to hurt Akai again.

That's the one they vote for, eventually.


	8. Ascend (1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is heavier than a lot of the others -- lots of violence and some blatantly self-destructive behavior. (You can't get god tier without breaking a few bodies.)

**== > BARD OF LIGHT: PLAN ASCENSION**

You don't tell anyone what you're planning, because Aoko and Hakuba would both freak, and unlike with Hondou they'd probably feel completely justified in sitting on you until you promised not to do it. Instead, you carefully leave them with the impression you're off to do something illegal on Derse — which is _nearly_ true.

At first you can't figure out _how_ — this isn't exactly something you can ask for help with. It wouldn't be right to do that to someone. (Maybe earlier you would have invited tantei-hime in the hopes she'd get it out of her system, but you've reached a certain level of detente over the fellow-murder-victims-and-Bourbon-foilers thing, and you wouldn't want to mess it up.) None of the immediately obvious possibilities seem right, either.

Secretly, you always thought that if it ever came to killing yourself, you'd do it with a long drop. But that won't exactly work on a Sacrificial Slab, and being your dreamself makes that… less likely, too. The dreamself's ability to fly seems to decrease the longer it's your primary self, but it isn't gone yet.

You could ask Hondou how he managed it, but you… really don't want to.

Then inspiration strikes — you just go by the Land of Labyrinths and Sand and steal one of Bourbon's guns.

You wouldn't do this if it would leave a body, but. You're probably going to go god tier eventually — might as well get ahead of it!

**== > BARD OF LIGHT: RISE UP**

Oh dear _god_ what are you _wearing_.

**== > KNIGHT OF SPACE: GET DISTRACTED BY GIANT FROG**

It's the size of a _person_. The appearifier won't get it all at once. So you and Kazuha have to trek out there through the swamp to try to catch it manually, which is ridiculous.

Then a dripping wet Agent with a snorkel and a hooked dagger rises out of the marsh and cuts Kazuha's throat.

Your mind blanks out. You forget you've got a real blade, not a bokken, until you see your attempted clout to the side of the head has sliced several inches into his neck instead. He still stabs you in the belly and twists the knife.

If he kills you, you won't be able to kiss Kazuha('s body). She'll die here, for good.

You wrench your sword free, and take a bigger swing this time. The Agent's head doesn't quite come off, but he falls, ripping his knife free. You fall, too. On your knees the marshwater comes up past your waist, to the abdominal wound that has to be deadly serious. You ignore it for the moment and tug Kazuha('s body) far enough out of the bloody marsh to kiss her.

Please let that be enough. That has to be enough.

Okay. You're almost certainly dying. Kazuha is your server player, she obviously isn't watching. Someone _might_ see you in the clouds, but you can't stake your _life_ on that.

Clutching your abdomen just in case anything's trying to escape, you struggle to your feet and begin the long stagger to your Quest Bed.

**== > KNIGHT OF SPACE: RISE UP**

It doesn't hurt any more.

You're on the Battlefield.

Success.

Now you just need to find Kazuha.

==> **BARD OF LIGHT: PREPARE TO GO OUT IN PUBLIC**

After considerable trial and error, you have your god tier outfit redesigned to something you wouldn't mind the critics seeing. It's basically the KID costume, but with blue and red swapped out for yellow and orange, the monocle now bordered with a Light symbol, and another Light symbol on the hatband. You like the unaltered costume better, but it's more likely to stick if you include something of the color scheme and symbols.

You suppose you had better go admit stuff to Aoko.

**== > MAGE OF MIND: CONSIDER ASCENSION**

"Now, I'm not planning on doing anything right away," you say. "I don't want to know what my family would say if I died twice in a week. But when the time _does_ come… I'd like to not get shot again." Because it was _very upsetting_ , and now even thinking about being shot gives you weird flashbacks to being certain Shuu-nii was going to be killed. "So…"

"You want me to mix up a lethal injection for you," Haibara says flatly.

"Well… if you're comfortable with that?" You don't insult her by implying she _couldn't_.

Haibara sighs deeply. "Fine. I'll make one for you, too."

"…Too?"

"Suzuki-san was here yesterday asking for the same thing," Haibara says. "Four doses, actually. I've only promised to deliver one — I need to make sure everyone else she wants to give them to is _okay_ with this scheme."

**== > PAGE OF VOID: CONSIDER ASCENSION**

"It's not that I want to die," you say. "I just feel so… _useless_. And my sprite says to reach my full potential…"

"But you're not useless," Aoko replies. "You've been beating every underling we run into."

"Oh, _underlings_ , sure. I can fight monsters and get grist, fine. But any of the important stuff? Agents? _Amuro-san_? I can't do a damn—" karate chop to an unwise imp— "thing." Just like you can't find Shinichi anywhere on Derse or its moon. Just like you can't even top Aoko at solving puzzles — she brushes it off as the result of too much practice doing math under weird conditions, and this being her Land to begin with.

"Aoko arrived after you did," Aoko says. "You were at least in time to stop him from hurting Sonoko-san."

"I think Jirokichisprite was doing a good job of that."

"And you realized Ai-chan was hurt in time for people to take her back to Derse."

You shrug. "I suppose."

Honestly you don't think you're going to feel okay, god tier or not, until Shinichi stops lying to you. Until Conan stops lying to you. Because _you know_ they're lying. _He's_ lying. And if you let on that you know there will be some ridiculous scheme to make you doubt it, and you will doubt it, and then you'll feel even more awful and worse than useless. So you're not going to say anything without incontrovertible proof — which will probably turn out not to be incontrovertible after they pick at it, and… You're just so tired of it all.

But you're not going to say any of that, because first, Aoko's secret-keeping best friend was out _committing grand theft_ and _regularly humiliating her father_ , and also _drugged her to use her as an alibi_ , and that just makes your problems seem small. And second, because Conan is spying on you from behind a rock under ten meters away and can hear every word, and you'd rather not start the ridiculous scheme right now. —You're better at detecting people hiding now than you used to be, you think. It might be a power of Void? Seacucumbersprite has been hinting about Void powers, here and there…

…There's someone else here—

**== > HEIR OF TIME: CONSIDER ASCENSION**

You really don't like the thought of Ran going god tier. You _think_ it's just because it would require her dying. You hope so, anyway. You don't like to think you'd rather hold her back. (And _you_ couldn't ascend without smashing what's left of your cover.)

Your phone vibrates. It's from Hakuba—

CLOUDS INDICATE DERSITE AGENTS ARE OR SOON WILL BE ATTEMPTING ASSASSINATIONS. CAUTION ADVISED.

Oh, great, that's just what you need right now, with everyone still so unsettled—

—Where's Ran going all of a sudden?

Wait, what's—

**== > PAGE OF VOID: CONSIDER ASCENSION MORE IMMEDIATELY**

Your kick hits the little Dersite just a split second after he hits the detonation control, but it's still too late. Aoko gets peppered in shrapnel — she screams — Conan gets thrown five meters up in the air—

You catch Conan, barely. He's covered in burns and abrasions, and when he wheezes blood trickles out of his mouth. He doesn't _feel_ right. With his glasses missing (leaving a clear unburned patch around his eyes, though) he looks even more like Shinichi.

You could kiss him, but— "I have to get him to his Quest Bed."

"Go," Aoko says, for all she's bleeding copiously herself. "I'll try to keep this one for questioning."

You run for the transportalizer.

**== > SYLPH OF HEART: TRY TO HOLD PERPETRATOR FOR QUESTIONING**

Despite what you said to Ran, there's not much chance of you doing that. You fire your mop-net at him, but it's only meant to slow enemies down, not hold them indefinitely. And you're bleeding, heavily, and it's gushing out over your hands in places. You need a doctor — you need a _hospital_.

What you've got is a Quest Bed. You manage to make it before you pass out.

**== > HEIR OF TIME: WAKE UP A LITTLE**

You wake up at the all-over prickle of transportalizer travel, twice, in rapid succession. Everything either hurts or is worryingly numb, and you're being jolted violently — carried at a run, you think, held tightly against—

You must be badly hurt. That didn't even summon a blush.

"R-ran-neechan?" you slur. "What…?"

"You were spying on me and Aoko-san, Conan-kun," she says, sounding a little strained — more than a little strained. "An Agent set off a bomb and you were badly hurt."

So now Ran is carrying you through — LOSAW, this is your Land, why are you here? Surely trying to find Haibara would make more sense—

She leaps over a steam vent, and you pass out again.

**== > HEIR OF TIME: RISE UP**

When you wake up, you're back in your real body again, and you're flying.

**== > PAGE OF VOID: OBSERVE ASCENSION**

You sit down a ways from the Quest Bed and watch it activate, and then you watch Skaia.

Shinichi, Shinichi ascending, and no Conan.

You sigh, and get up, and make for LOGAS, and your own Quest Bed. No need to make the coming confrontation more unequal than it has to be.

**== > SYLPH OF HEART: RISE UP**

You've barely had a chance to look around the Battlefield when Kaito, in full KID costume, tries to glomp you. "You scared the hell out of me, Ahoko!"

Oops. He must have found the Quest Bed and the… body. "It wasn't  a long-term plan, and why are you dressed like that?!"

"It's my god tier costume."

"It looks nothing like—"

"I will _die before admitting otherwise_. What the hell's going on? Everyone's god tiering all of a sudden."


	9. Aftermath

**== > WITCH OF BLOOD: SURVEY AFTERMATH**

When the metaphorical dust has settled, half the remaining players have reached god tier (with varying degrees of premeditation), Toyama is inhabiting her dreamself, and Kudou's secret is blown wide open. Everyone knows, now.

You're just going to go ahead and pass out the lethal doses to everyone not god tier yet.

**== > MAID OF LIFE: GO GO GOD TIER!**

Not right _now_ , sheesh! Everything is still complete chaos!

And, you've resolved you're not going to move another _finger_ towards winning the game until you've had a chance to beat the stuffing out of that — that — that — _detective_! How — how _dare_ he do that to Ran? If she wants to beat him up, she has priority, of course, but you just _know_ she's going to let him off because of _circumstances_. You'll have your chance soon, because everyone is gathering for another meeting at the massive edifice that started out as your uncle's house. You alchemize a duffel-bag sized purse just for the occasion. Maybe Aoko will let you borrow one of her mops, they seemed to work very well chastising Kuroba.

All the new god tiers show up in god tier clothing except Kuroba, whose variant on KID costume is chic as anything with orange and yellow can be, but obviously not standard god tier issue. Ran has the legs to make her outfit very flattering, but doesn't seem to appreciate it. Hattori keeps turning suddenly, _obviously_ to get his cape to flare out. Aoko doesn't seem as preoccupied with her clothes as the others, but keeps bouncing up to hover a few inches off the floor and then dropping back down.

As for the rest — poor Kazuha is still in Prospit pajamas, and is sticking by Hattori, not that he seems to be objecting. Hondou has come up with some regular-looking clothes, as has Ai-chan. Sera and Hakuba are speaking quietly about… detective stuff.

 _That detective_ slinks in last. The tail of his stupidly long hood gets shut in the door. Hattori laughs at him.

You stand up and pound a fist on the desk. "First order of business — _who knew about this_?" You glower at Shinichi.

**== > HEIR OF TIME: FACE THE MUSIC**

It looks like the music will open with a solo from Sonoko. "It doesn't matter who knew—"

"It _does_ matter," Sera interrupts. "I'm sorry, Ran-chan. I knew. I just… Operational security and secrets are sort of a fact of life for my family, ne? I _am_ sad that I misled you."

Hattori shrugs. "Well, I knew."

"That'd be why you're _always_ callin' him Kudou," Kazuha says. "I didn't know, Ran-chan. _I_ would've told you."

Eisuke admits he found out _just_ before he left the country, but thankfully doesn't explain the exact circumstances. Hakuba says he just thought Conan was a very strange child, and Nakamori-san never really met you to know anything.

KID shrugs, and murmurs something about Edogawa Fumiyo not having appeared in any films about Ryouma (he's right, damn it), but not being in a very good position to call out others' secret lives.

"It was a matter of life and death for everyone we knew," Haibara says. "It had to be secret."

"Obviously not _that_ secret," Sonoko retorts.

"Sonoko, just — we don't need to do this now," Ran says. "Or ever! I'm sure he's going to tell me the truth _now_ , as soon as we have a chance. That's what really matters, all right?" She gives you a wan but still hopeful smile.

"Um. Yes," you manage.

Sonoko growls, and chucks a giant purse at your face. You get knocked over.

**== > PRINCE OF BREATH: TRY TO GET THINGS BACK ON TRACK**

You're not sure how much hope there is of that. Mouri-san goes to help Kudou-kun up, and he gets very flustered by her bare legs. Kuroba is staying uncharacteristically quiet — your best guess is that he wants to avoid bringing up _his_ secret-keeping history. Alternatively, he's still shaken up over finding Aoko's — Quest Bed. He's hovering more than usual.

Which brings you to one of the issues that really needs to get discussed. You clear your throat. "Unless someone has already — disposed of the — bodies — currently in Suzuki-san's cellar, we now have _eight_ dead bodies to do something with before they become unsanitary."

Suzuki-san looks torn between pursuing justice against lying detectives and pursuing getting the _bodies_ out of her cellar. "Well — all right. Do you have any suggestions?"

Well… no, frankly.

"If they're on Quest Beds, no need to worry!" Jirokichisprite announces suddenly. Hondou-kun falls off his chair. "The consorts will get them and entomb them!"

"How… nice," Aoko says weakly. "I guess that's better than leaving them lying around…"

"And I was just out in the middle of the marsh!" Toyama says. "I'm probably underwater and getting all—"

"None of that does anything about the bodies in the _cellar_ —"

Hattori suddenly sits up straight. "My omamori!"


	10. Ascend (2)

**== > HEIR OF TIME: GO TO DERSE**

In the aftermath of the multiple, semi-successful assassinations, you agree as a group that you need to be cautious on Derse or Derse's moon. Somehow this translates into your quick investigation to make sure the Authority Regulator isn't in trouble being turned into a group excursion with Ran, Sera, and KID. Sera needs to go to the center of the moon to get to god tier — you have to agree with her assertion that she might as well, since it sounds like that at least won't produce any _additional_ bodies. And as long as you're there, Haibara pointed out, you should maybe check on Bourbon's dreamself. And, for some reason, everyone else agrees that bringing Ran and KID should make all errands safer.

Which, all right, makes a certain amount of sense. KID had weeks to explore what passes for Derse's underworld while your dreamself was still sleeping, he logically has contacts or at least knows back routes. And everyone agrees a hero of Void is good at hiding people. Just…

Oh, you don't even _know_.

**== > KNIGHT OF SPACE: RETRIEVE YOUR OMAMORI**

And Kazuha's omamori, is the plan. And your phones. She wanted to come, too, but you just couldn't face body-searching with Kazuha, no matter how reassuring it might have been to have a living Kazuha next to you when you're faced with a… with… maybe this was a bad idea. You really wish Kudou could come with you, but he's gone to Derse with Neechan, KID, and Sera, for some combination of Sera visiting her Sacrificial Slab and Kudou checking on his Dersite contacts/friends/fans and somebody seeing what Bourbon's dreamself has been up to. You kind of wish they at least hadn't taken KID. KID would have been an okay body-retrieval assistant.

You almost ended up with Hakuba, which would have made the whole thing impossibly worse, but happily the justification for leaving Kazuha works even better on him — it'll go faster if everyone in the party can fly. Fly for sure, not fly maybe-fading over time.

Haibara can fly, but declined with the excuse that she's too small. That leaves you with Hondou and Nakamori. You appreciate their being willing to help, but foresee this ending with Eisuke tripping over nothing in midair and dropping your body in the marsh.

Not that he's going to be able to do that if you can't _find_ your body. There's just a big pool of congealed blood on the Quest Bed, with a single trail leading down the winding path where you staggered up it.

"You really have to ask why these things are so _high_ ," Nakamori-san says. "I almost didn't make it up to mine before I passed out."

"Aesthetics," Hondou says darkly.

Actually, on closer inspection, it's not a single blood trail on the path. It's a single, _trampled_ blood trail. Someone — multiple someones — walked up the trail after you… ascended, and then back down.

Someones with _paws_.

**== > ROGUE OF HOPE: FUME**

You've been left watching the unconscious people with Hakuba-kun and Jirokichisprite. Sonoko-chan has gone to find her Quest Bed, and you don't know where Ai-chan disappeared to. Heiji has gone back to LORAF with Hondou-kun and _Nakamori-san_ , and it _grates_. (It shouldn't grate, it's not like they're alone together and anyway Ran-chan told you she's 90% sure Nakamori-san _like_ -likes Kuroba-kun and vice versa. It still grates.)

Maybe it wouldn't grate if you were doing something actually _productive_. Or maybe…

"I'm going to Prospit," you announce. 

"Toyama-san—"

"I'll be back when I'm god tier."

**== > PRINCE OF BREATH: …**

…

All right, you are _not_ going to be the only non-god tier besides the locked up person. Especially not when you're already lagging behind in the building, due to your server player _being_ the locked-up person. 

You summon your sprite, instruct it to assist Jirokichisprite, and set off for LOSAO.

**== > SYLPH OF HEART: TAG ALONG**

Personally you would have taken an approach other than bursting into the consort village yelling "What did you idiots do with my body?!" but it does seem to work for Hattori-kun. The fox-consorts greet him happily and without a shred of concern over his temper, and proceed to lead you all to a hill rising out of the marsh, topped by an ominous black stone building with a Space symbol on the door. "It will open for the Hero!" they assure you. Hattori-kun looks like he'd be just as happy waiting outside. 

"I don't think this is a crematorium," Hondou-kun says slowly. "I think it's a crypt, a Western crypt."

"What's that mean?" you ask, since Hattori-kun is still staring at the door. 

"Well… it means the amulet and phone should be intact, but… the, uh, the body will be intact, too."

Your eyes widen. "Is that… _normal_ , in America?"

"Not, uh, not crypts this big. But not cremating the bodies… yes."

"That's… they just… bury them? As they are?"

"Sometimes they do something to preserve them? I only looked all this up once…"

"Could ya both stop talking about this?" Hattori-kun says, and oops, that was a little insensitive, you guess. 

The door of the probably-a-crypt rises when Hattori-kun walks up to it. All three of you edge your way in, and a light in the ceiling activates. 

The walls are covered in intricate carvings of frogs, foxes, Space symbols, and a giant monster that must be LORAF's Denizen. There are two platforms in the middle of the room. One is draped with a heavy cloth bearing the Space symbol; the other's drapery is more like a blanket, decorated with a wobbly pair of wings. 

"The second bier is meant to be for if you die again!" one of the foxes chirps, from immediately behind you. (All of you startle; Hondou-kun starts to fall over but lifts off instead.) "But we talked about it and decided you'd like having the Rogue of Hope here!"

"Well, I can't say I'm not glad you didn't leave her lyin' in the marsh—"

"Because you're mates!"

Hattori-kun's jaw drops. "Even the damn _consorts_ —?"

Hondou-kun is the one to retrieve both phones and omamori.

**== > MAGE OF MIND: RISE UP**

Working on it. Ai-chan's lethal injection isn't working quite as fast as you hoped it might.

**== > HEIR OF TIME: WAIT POLITELY FOR ASCENSION TO FINISH**

Sera said she didn't want an audience, so you and Ran and KID are hovering nearby with your backs turned to the Sacrificial Slabs. It's kind of weird, but what can you do. At least the ascension proper finally seems to be starting.

You're not sure whether to be grateful or worried that Ran isn't using the time to ask for an explanation from you. On the one hand, you appreciate more time to prepare an explanation, because you really don't have a coherent one. On the other hand, _why isn't she asking for an explanation_?

Instead, she's talking to KID about how he modified his god tier outfit, even though he won't directly admit to having done so. You understand why. (You're also listening in for hints on how to keep your hood from getting caught in any more doors.)

…You do wonder what the default Bard costume is that KID won't even be _seen_ in it.

…You can probably find out somewhere on the Battlefield.

You're trying to think up _legitimate_ Battlefield errands when the light show finishes and Sera flies over to join you. _Her_ outfit isn't too bad. 

"So! That's done with. What next?"

Everyone looks at you expectantly. 

"Ask around about AR," you decide finally. "If he isn't in trouble, that should be pretty fast."

And then, naturally, you find Bourbon's strangled and beaten dreamself lying in the second alley you go down. He's covered in dried blood but doesn't have any wounds, so you guess he put up a fight — maybe a lethal fight, from the amount of blood — but he is now a dead dreamself.

"Shit," you mutter. Rei was an obstinate idiot about Akai, but he didn't deserve to die like this. Or. Experience getting killed like this? "The main one's still okay on Prospit, right?"

"Hakuba went and checked, I think, after the other attacks," KID says. "He'd have mentioned it if there was anything noteworthy."

"We should check again," you say. You'll go, take Hattori as a guide, maybe. "For now, let's… I'll take him to his tower."

"Take Mouri-san with you, or you'll be very conspicuous," KID advises. 

"Says the guy in the white top hat," Sera says. 

"…Good point." There's a puff of smoke, and then KID's standing there in plain black, with a baseball cap pulled low. "I can hold this the rest of the time we're here…"

…Definitely have to find out what the Bard costume is. 

Ran flies up to Rei's tower with you, to Void you all out. You deposit his body carefully on the bed. He never picked up the flowerpot you knocked over, what feels like an eternity ago.

"I shouldn't be surprised anymore," Ran says softly.

"Hmm?"

"When this game is cruel."

More like 'when this game reveals yet another way it's messing with your heads', but… close enough. "I get surprised, too."

**== > ROGUE OF HOPE: RISE UP**

The convenient thing about going to god tier via Sacrificial Slab is it leaves you on Prospit's moon, and you already know how to get back to LOSAT. 

…Or you could just as easily go to LORAF. 

You shouldn't. You told Hakuba-kun you'd be back when you were god tier, which did kind of imply _as soon as_ you were god tier. 

…But you do have the extra phone Sonoko lent you, and you did remember to set it somewhere safe before administering Ai-chan's injection. You send Hakuba-kun a quick mail asking if he minds if you stop by LORAF first. He doesn't say it's a problem. …Well, he doesn't reply at all, which is actually sort of concerning, but if something has gone wrong you should probably bring more reinforcements than just yourself anyway!

So, off to LORAF. 

**== > PRINCE OF BREATH: RISE UP**

Damn it, you should have asked Aoko-kun how she was able to get back from the Battlefield so _quickly_ — or Kudou-kun, or Mouri-san, or Kuroba since he showed up with them, or anyone other than Hattori. Or even Hattori. Now you're lost and phoneless on this giant mutant chessboard, and you just have to hope you can find Suzuki-san and she _does_ know a quick way back. You'd rather not have to be tracked down via clouds. 

**== > MAID OF LIFE: RISE UP**

Damn it, you should have asked Ran for directions…


	11. (Mostly) Feelings

**== > BARD OF LIGHT: GATHER INTELLIGENCE**

It takes very little time to find out that tantei-kun's more persistent Dersite fans were arrested, and only a little more to find out where they're imprisoned. You also find out an additional tidbit—

"Tantei-han has gone up to the top of the most wanted players list — apparently the assassin he killed was Archagent Jack Noir, and neither the Black Queen nor someone called the Draconian Dignitary are happy about it. At all."

"Oh, great," tantei-kun mutters. "The one who blew me up got away, right? So they're not particularly after Ran?"

You do _not_ shudder, even though your mind goes to Aoko lying still and bloodless on her Quest Bed, covered in ugly shrapnel wounds. "Yes, he's still alive to blow more people up. Called the Courtyard Droll, and he may be targeting Bourbon, for killing the 'Hegemonic Brute' who killed him. His dreamself."

Mouri-san looks concerned. "If someone with bombs is trying to kill him, and he's in prison… That's not safe for him _or_ the guards."

Tantei-kun grimaces and gives tantei-hime an apologetic look. "…We may need to let him out."

Tantei-hime does not look happy, but also doesn't argue — at least not now. "Let's just… get the innocent prisoners out first."

It's a truly grand jailbreak. 

**== > WITCH OF BLOOD: ** ~~**BROOD** ~~ **THINK**

You need privacy to think. You gave the excuse of wanting to work on expanding Kudou's house in peace and quiet, secure in the knowledge that no one you were making it to was familiar enough with your Land to know LOGAH is _never_. _Fucking_. _Quiet_. The damned _heartbeats_ do not _stop_.

You wish it hadn't been necessary to move the Professor and the Detective Boys for their safety. The house would feel so big with just you even if it weren't now dozens of questionably sound stories tall. (You have more confidence in Sera's grasp of architecture than Hattori's grasp of biology, but only just.)

…All right, on reflection you should put the game on a laptop and go do both building and thinking somewhere else. But dammit, you _said_ you'd be here. You have to go at least a few hours, and you _will_ get some thinking done.

You set a timer for two hours and five minutes, and then spend twenty minutes getting the laptop set up for when you can leave.

Kudou's secret is blown. Yours is, too, with anyone who bothers to think about it. Half of them might not be able to figure out you were Sherry, if only because they've never heard of Sherry, but the de-aging part — that's out. No one's called you on it, yet. You guess everyone has been very distracted.

It's hard to believe that it might not _matter_ , now, if people know who and what you are. Bourbon may still want to kill Akai, but he doesn't have any personal grudge against Sherry. Gin's gone with Earth. You're free.

 _Except_.

Except Bourbon admitted he thinks Vermouth was lurking in his apartment for some reason, but she wasn't there later. Except no one has seen Bourbon's sprite since he entered, and people have been looking. 

You, Kudou, and Bourbon all agreed, early on, that this means it's not unlikely that _Vermouthsprite_ is somewhere in the Incipisphere doing god knows what.

The house feels huge. Blood-tinted light comes in the windows.

Still an hour and twenty minutes to go.

Your phone buzzes, and you do not almost jump out of your skin, because you are a cool and composed person. It's — Hattori? You thought he'd blocked you over the frog-related calls. "Moshi-moshi."

"Moshi-moshi, uh, Haibara-san — are you in a position ta get back ta LOSAT right away? We're tryin' to salvage the frog breeding here an' it looks like all the idiots we left there ran off to go god tier instead of keeping an eye on things there like they were supposed to—"

"Did you just call me an idiot?" Toyama shouts in the background.

You sigh heavily, dramatically. "If it's necessary."

**== > BARD OF LIGHT: HEAR SOME (LACK OF) INTELLIGENCE**

You've just escorted the Dersite fans (and a few other political prisoners) safely to LOSAW and the now-towering Kudou house when Aoko calls. You answer immediately, without apology. (The Quest Bed is going to haunt you for a long time.)

"Kaito," she says. "Have you seen the clouds?"

"No, we just got back from Derse — what is it?"

"Apparently both Hakuba-kun and Suzuki-san ascended on the Battlefield—"

"Just a minute, I'm putting the phone on speaker." You glance at the others. "It's Aoko — cloud stuff."

"It looks like Hakuba-kun and Suzuki-san both ascended on the Battlefield," she repeats.

"Damn it!" tantei-kun hisses. "They both had dreamselves, they could have—" He cuts himself off, glancing at Mouri-san.

"And now I think they're both lost," Aoko continues. "At least, whenever they show up they just look like they're wandering. I was thinking I could go get them, but it might be safer not to go alone…"

 _Excellent_ thinking there. "Got it — should we meet in the meteor lab?"

"Hang on, that'd leave Hattori with just Hondou-kun, and if he's a top assassination target—" tantei-kun starts. 

Aoko hears him. "Toyama-san's here, too, and god tier."

No wonder Aoko wants to leave. You bet Toyama would be a lot less insecure if tantei-han could just _spit it out_.

**== > KNIGHT OF SPACE: HAVE A NAGGING SENSE THAT SOMEONE WITH NO ROOM TO TALK IS CRITICIZING YOUR ABILITY TO EXPRESS YOUR FEELINGS**

…

**== > BACK TO THE BARD OF LIGHT**

"Wait a minute, that means no one but Jirokichisprite is with the passengers!" tantei-hime says. "I'm going back there."

"I think Hattori-kun called Haibara-chan after we saw Hakuba-kun in the clouds—"

"That was smart, I'm going anyway."

"I'll meet you in the meteor lab," you tell Aoko. 

Maybe if you leave tantei-kun and Mouri-san alone, they'll have that talk. You doubt it, but it's possible. 

**== > PAGE OF VOID: HAVE THE TALK?**

You've decided you're just not going to push for an explanation. He's here now, and you're trying to win a deadly, cruel, apocalyptic game, with all your lives and your families' as the stakes. Those are the important things.

…And you feel bad about it, but. You can't say you aren't getting _any_ satisfaction out of his mounting nervousness the longer you don't ask.

**== > HEIR OF TIME: HAVE THE TALK?**

You're ready — you _think_ you're ready — to explain the apotoxin and the shrinking and why you felt it wasn't safe to tell her, you really are. There was a lot of — all right — possibly irrational fear involved, and if you can manage to admit that you know she'll be kind. But the thing is — the thing is—

Nakamori Aoko was angry about the whole friend-being-KID thing, as well she might be, but it seemed like she was even _angrier_ about the drugging/alibi thing — and Ran and all the other girls agreed that it was if not worse, at least a _really big deal_. And it's not like you've ever needed an _alibi_ , you haven't been out committing _huge ridiculous crimes_ , but the thing is… the thing is, when it comes to _drugging_ people for strategic purposes… you might actually have KID beat. Definitely have him beat unless you count sleep gas during heists, most of which was not administered directly to family and friends. Some of it, but not most.

You need to think about it a while longer, before you risk opening that subject.

"Let's get these guys settled and head back to LOSAT," you say. "We'll need to get everybody back to have another vote on Bourbon."

Hondou'll probably be relieved to be called back, anyway, stuck alone with Hattori and Kazuha.


	12. (Sort Of) Romances

**== > BARD OF LIGHT: LOCATE LOST PLAYERS**

It doesn't take long to find Suzuki — she's shouting and throwing things trying to chase one of the larger chess monsters away from a small farmstead. It makes tracks about the same time you and Aoko show up.

"I had it under control," Suzuki says. "You didn't need to come all this way to get me."

"It's not a difficult trip!" Aoko says cheerfully. "You just get to Prospit, and then there are transportalizers to Prospit-held castles here."

"I thought the route was more complicated!" Suzuki says. "Considering how long it took everyone to get back last time…"

"Well, getting through the castle isn't instantaneous, and it took longer because of the crashing ship," Aoko explains. "Hattori-kun and Kudou-kun were distracted by their, ah, conversation—"

"They were distracted by arguing over whether or not the other one had been careless in getting killed," you point out, as Aoko is perfectly well aware.

She waves a hand — doesn't matter — which she would _not_ do if it had been you or even Hakuba having said argument. "They were very distracted, although I still think they probably should have noticed the Prospitian landing vessel before it almost crashed on them. Ran-san had to fly into it and ease it down and save all of them, it was very impressive."

"It's Heroic or Just, not Stupid, they'd have been fine," you contribute. "Prospitians wouldn't've been, though."

"Then it turned out it was crashing because there'd been a triple murder in the control room, which was locked from the inside, and well, no one was going anywhere in a hurry after that."

You'd pointed out that there was nothing keeping the rest of you from leaving — you're not certain the detectives would have noticed — but Mouri-san didn't want to let tantei-kun out of her sight, and then Aoko didn't want to leave Mouri-san on her own with idiot boys.

Speaking of idiots… "Now where's Hakuba gotten himself to…" No sign of him in sight — not surprising, the Battlefield is smaller than it looks but not _that_ small — so you have to wait for him to show up, or show up in the clouds. Hopefully there will be a distinctive castle in the background.

**== > PRINCE OF BREATH: GET DISTRACTED**

You know the others got off the Battlefield through a transportalizer in a castle, but you have no idea which castle, and every castle transportalizer you've found so far has gone somewhere else in the same castle. At least, you think the same castle. You've only been in two so far (unless the transportalizers do lead to different castles), but the interiors definitely run together.

This is the first library you've found, though. Some of the books are absurd, but you're going to ask the locals if you can take the idiot's guide to frog breeding to give to Hattori. And this tome on the powers of the gods could potentially have valuable information about god tier powers (and if you're lucky a sketch of the Bard outfit)… and you've been curious about the psychology of consorts… and a complete guide to fraymotifs, that's unquestionably useful… and "The Romances of the Gods"? _That_ one you don't think you really need to take with you. Unless it's a very misleading title.

**== > BARD OF LIGHT: GLIMPSE YOUR QUARRY IN THE CLOUDS**

"Is he… is he just sitting and reading a book?" Suzuki says.

"Looks like it," you agree. " _Inside_. Where there are no landmarks."

Aoko squints. "Tell me I'm misreading the title on that."

**== > KNIGHT OF SPACE: INTERRUPT FROG-BREEDING FOR YET ANOTHER MEETING?**

You don't really mind. It beats playing musical phone tag or actually letting Hakuba set up conference calls. And anyway you, Kazuha, and Hondou manage to find the giant frog and drag it back and scan it before Kudou calls again. (You were looking forward to showing Kazuha how easy it is to get mud and pond slime off god tier clothes, but it turns out she figured it out herself, and a lot faster than you did. Darn.)

"We need to have another meeting about Bourbon," Kudou says. "He might be in danger of getting blown up in prison. And you need to be extra careful, you're being targeted over — that assassin."

(You think Kudou might be unhappy with you for having _killed_ someone. Not like _you're_ happy about it. You could have disabled the assassin without killing him, probably, if you'd thought of it. You were hurt and afraid and fighting for Kazuha, not just yourself, but what does it say about you that when you weren't thinking you went for the kill? Is it because you've spent so much time fighting things that aren't people? Is the Game _training_ you to kill? Is it going to get worse?) (Sometimes you're unhappy with Kudou being unhappy with you, because if it had been him, and Ran lying with her throat slashed, would he _really_ have done anything different? But he hasn't actually said anything so maybe it's all your imagination.)

"Will do," you say. "We'll just—"

"No, wait," Kudou says. "No, now it turns out KID, Nakamori-san, Sonoko, and Hakuba will be delayed indefinitely while the other three try to figure out what library Hakuba's gotten distracted in. So I guess you don't need to hurry."

In the background, neechan nearly shouts, "He's reading _what_?"

**== > PRINCE OF BREATH: YOU'RE READING _WHAT_?**

You're reading something _absolutely absurd_. It doesn't have any kind of useful information on powers or the Game. It doesn't even have any information on whether any of the potential couples will turn into actual couples. It's just — _wild speculation_ from carapacian writers featuring what seems to be _every possible combination_ of "gods".

You just can't seem to put it down, even though it's made you want to bleach your brain three times already. Not that it's — explicit, thank god, but it keeps _fading to black_ , and you do not need to be thinking about people you know like that _at all_. (And there was a note in the front about this being the edition for _general shelves_.) You should really put it down and _hide_ it, and yet you're still reading.

Maybe the book has some sort of hypnotic effect.

For all the absurdity of the scenarios most of the dialogue is really mostly in-character—

**== > HEIR OF TIME: FIND SOMETHING TO DO**

When Hattori is finished laughing about Hakuba holding everything up because he's reading some sort of romance, he hands the phone to Hondou to tell you about what consorts apparently do with bodies. It's honestly not as bad as you were afraid it might be, after the trying-to-steal-the-kids business. You guess it's a… Game-programmed behavior? It's a little unnerving to hear the Game also has plans for if you die permanently, but hopefully it's a precaution, not a prediction. You ask Hondou to try to keep a particularly close eye on Hattori anyway.

Now what, though? You could still go back to LOSAT, but as long as you're _here_ … "Ran, do you mind if we go pick up _my_ phone?" Phones, actually. And the shoes won't fit, but you can grab the watch and glasses. And maybe the belt, even though you won't be able to wear it. "It will mean, um…"

"That's probably a good idea," she says. "Then we can go to LOGAS and get mine. Maybe they'll have found Hakuba-kun by then."

…That's fair. You're not thrilled about it, but it's definitely fair.

It's a bit of a hike to your Quest Bed, but a shorter flight, since you don't have to detour around every steam vent. Actually, the Quest Bed is closer to the transportalizer terminus than either is to your house, which is… possibly significant.

"Do you know what your planet quest is?" Ran asks when you're maybe halfway there, breaking an uncomfortable silence. "Hattori-kun has all the frog things, Kazuha-chan is supposed to find the Last Verse, Sonoko thinks she knows how to make the trees flower, Sera-chan is supposed to find some sort of key, Aoko-san is supposed to calm the sea somehow, Eisuke-kun has to thread a particular needle…"

You wonder when they all discussed that. Sometime while you were avoiding Ran, you guess. "I'm supposed to synchronize the watches." You point to the nearest visible watch face, a huge one ticking away from the outcropping it's embedded in. "It should be fairly straightforward with the sort of Time powers my sprite keeps talking about. Which I don't have, maybe because I still can't believe it's possible."

Ran nods glumly. "Mine is a secret. Explicitly a secret. I thought maybe the quest _was_ to find out what the quest was, but if it was, then realizing that would be completing it, wouldn't it? And it's not done." She sighs. "I think it's going to take facing my Denizen to even find out what it is."

Ugh, _Denizens_. So far you think only KID has even approached his Denizen's palace, and he just cased the outside. But you guess, with everyone god tier, that is the next goal people will be aiming for. "Be careful when you do," you say, instead of any of the things you'd like to. It wins you a more genuine smile.

Sadly, just as the mood is improving, you arrive at the Quest Bed.

**== > HEIR OF TIME: DEAL WITH THE "FUN" PART**

As expected, it's empty. You cautiously fly a little higher, wondering if you can find the crypt without having to talk to the consorts. All the steam isn't helping, and your planet is full of rocky hills anyway…

"Over there?" Ran suggests, pointing, and yes, the top of that hill does look a little redder and more regular than the others.

"Well-spotted," you say, and take off. Ran catches up almost immediately, but doesn't try to follow you into the crypt. You're grateful.

Dealing with Conan's body — your body — is harder than you expected, and you weren't expecting it to be easy. Conan-you didn't die as bloody as it sounds like Hattori did, but sitting on a concussion blast isn't a _pretty_ way to die. The glasses are gone entirely, which you should have remembered from your moments of consciousness after the explosion, and you can't bring yourself to get the belt. You do get the phones and the watch.

You pause before leaving — you hoped to get back your real body, but you never expected saying goodbye to Conan would be quite this… _literal_. You almost feel like you should… it's not like he _was_ a different person… the Game makes everything so unnecessarily _confusing_.

"Thank you," you say finally, and drape the Time cloth back in place.

Now for Ran's planet, and the _really_ fun part.

(You get delayed en route when a Prospitian accosts you to request you find out what vile, ruthless criminal… sabotaged a mailbox. You are really not convinced it's worth your time, but she's very hard to say no to.)

**== > PRINCE OF BREATH: OOPS**

You are so distracted by the _damn_ book that Kuroba is able to sneak up behind you, throw his damn cape over your head, and snatch the book out of your hands. Unforgivable, even given his no doubt silent (and aerial) approach.

"Well, well, tantei-san, what have you been — _shit_!" Kuroba slams the book closed, from the sound of it, and whacks you in the head with it. "Are you out of your _mind_ I could get killed just for being _near_ that, they'd just wait and see whether it was Just, and if it wasn't then they could kill me _again_ —"

There were worse chapters for Kuroba to find you reading — but, true, probably not many worse chapters for Kuroba to be caught reading. Not that it's good that Kuroba caught you reading at all— "That book has some sort of hypnotic effect—"

He tries to hit you with it again.

Aoko snatches it out of his hands and, thank god, doesn't take a closer look before flinging it over her shoulder. "Forget that, we just need to get back so we can have the meeting, and then we can get back to doing _quests_! We'll get behind!"

You're already behind. "Yes, well, I think _these_ books" — you point to the pile at your feet — "may be useful references. About powers, and fraymotifs, and frog breeding."

Aoko sighs dramatically and helps you collect the useful books, while Kuroba sweet-talks the local carapacians into letting you take off with them. He agrees to carry some of the books when Aoko complains they're heavy, but makes a show of scrutinizing each title. They get into a content-free argument that lasts all the way out of the castle, and so you fail to notice until too late that Suzuki-san has gone unusually quiet.

She's reading _The Romances of the Gods_ , and seems terribly engrossed.

Definitely hypnotic.

 


	13. Regrouping

**== > PAGE OF VOID: PROCEED AS PLANNED**

After extricating yourselves from the case of the sabotaged mailbox (one of Shinichi's consorts was angry about a package not being delivered), you head to LOGAS by transportalizer. Neither LOSAW or the meteor lab are bright, but LOGAS is darker still. "Have you been here before at all?" You and Conan did some early exploring on LOSAW together, but by the time you got around to really exploring LOGAS the dreamself lie had fallen flat and Conan was avoiding you.

"Just passed through," Shinichi says, blinking in the dark. "Are there… really ghosts?"

You still shiver at the word, which is annoying. "There are things that are called ghosts." Which you cannot punch. "They mostly just fly around making… sad noises. I don't _think_ they can touch anything."

"I guess that's better than the alternative," Shinichi mumbles.

The ghosts, whatever they are, do make flying on LOGAS a more _challenging_ endeavor. Maybe you _could_ fly right through them, but you don't want to try.

Rather than go to the Quest Bed itself (and court possible awkward questions), you just head straight to the nearest consort village. They're happy to point you at the crypt.

Just as you're picking up your own phone, the spare phone Sonoko gave you rings — it's Kuroba-kun, or at least his phone. "Moshi-moshi?"

"Ran!" Sonoko says. "We found Hakuba-kun, finally, and — you have to get back to LOSAT, I have _got_ to show you something."

**== > HEIR OF TIME: BACK TO LOSAT**

That… went better than it could have. You still haven't managed to explain anything, though. Back in the semi-official meeting room, not too far from the passengers, you exchange greetings and pull out your phone — your proper phone — to call the group on LORAF.

**== > HEIR OF TIME: MEETING NOW?**

You hang up a few minutes later. "Hondou-kun says they'll be here soon — they're just in the middle of a delicate… appearifying… thing." Whatever that means. 

You survey the room. Everyone else seems occupied with the books brought back from the Battlefield. KID's hunched protectively over something on the powers of gods — probably looking for Bard pictures, you'll know for sure if he starts tearing pages out. Hakuba has given up trying to look over his shoulder and has something about fraymotifs, while Haibara has an 'idiot's guide to frog-breeding' which you wish you could warn Hattori about. 

Sonoko, Ran, and Sera are sitting on a couch all looking at the same book, with Nakamori-san hovering behind them (not literally). Ran and Nakamori-san are beet red, while Sonoko and Sera are snickering. You guess the romance was steamier than you thought…

Sera pulls the book out of the way as Sonoko doubles over giggling, and you see the full title. _What_?

You edge over towards Hakuba and KID. "What is in that book?" you hiss. 

Hakuba turns as red as Ran. KID just shakes his head. 

"Tantei-kun, you would be happier not knowing."

"I'd never be happier not knowing anything," you point out. 

"We're the characters," Hakuba says stiffly. "In… every possible combination, according to the table of contents. It doesn't actually get… pornographic, but there's a lot… implied. And some risqué illustrations."

"Oh, hell, it's _illustrated_?" KID says. 

"Sparingly." Hakuba clears his throat. "At any rate I would not recommend reading it, it seems to have some sort of hypnotic effect—"

KID rolls his eyes. " _Suuuure_ it does."

Hakuba glares. "Stop pretending you wouldn't have been all over the book if you weren't scared of Sera-san."

There's an especially loud burst of giggles from Sonoko. When you look over, Ran has her face hidden in her hands and Nakamori-san has turned away. 

All right, that's enough. "If it's all right for you to read it, it's all right for everyone to read it," you say, trying to sound firm and not plaintive. "Fair's fair."

Sera loses her smile and makes a face. "Well…"

"Maybe we should just take it back to the library," Ran says, slightly muffled. 

The door bangs open. "Success!" Hattori proclaims. "Kudou, did you know there was a big frog — normal big, not here big — about a meter away when you got shrunk? We had to get it without getting you or the bastards in black, that'd be the last thing we needed. It was a shitty angle, too."

Trailing him, Kazuha and Hondou both look mildly traumatized, and neither will meet your eyes. 

Oh, hell, did all three of them watch your shrinking multiple times while they tried to catch a damn frog? At least the appearifier doesn't have sound…

**== > HEIR OF TIME: MOVING ON**

"Okay, the first purpose of this meeting is to discuss Bourbon again," you say, before Hattori's group can mention your condition while shrinking and/or notice the romance book. "We obtained some information—"

" _I_ obtained some information—"

"Fine, _KID_ obtained information about the Agents' next plans. Hattori is a particular target for some high-ranking people because of who he — took out, but we don't know what they're going to do next. Bourbon also killed his assassin — his dreamself did — and he is therefore of particular interest to the little Agent with the explosives, the one who attacked on LOWAA. The 'Courtyard Droll', I believe."

"I'm sorry I let him get away," Nakamori-san says. 

"You were too badly hurt, Ahoko," KID says. "Does anyone else find it disturbing that carapacians seem to have function labels rather than names?"

"Yes, but _they_ don't seem to."

"Bakaito, what kind of a function label is 'Courtyard Droll' for an assassin?"

"Maybe it's, I don't know, a stealth label?"

" _Anyway_ ," you say. "Bourbon's locked up, stationary, an easy target for explosives. The Prospitian guards would be in danger, too. I think we need to let him out."

Sera scowls. "Fine. But for the record I am not happy about this, and I want someone watching him." Sonoko nods vigorous agreement. KID and Hondou don't say anything. 

"LORAF," Haibara says. "It's too wet for most explosives, he can help bodyguard Hattori-kun, and Hondou-kun is already monitoring for Doom."

You'll probably need him to do — planet things eventually, but that sounds like a good start. 

After some further discussion, you get to the books. Hattori takes the frog-breeding one with poor grace, the fraymotif guide you agree should stay here so anyone can consult it, and KID will not let go of the powers book — when Nakamori-san tries to grab it, it "vanishes" and she ends up holding his hat. 

The romances book has disappeared less dramatically.  You think Haibara may have snagged it. 

**== > WITCH OF BLOOD: READ THE ROMANCES**

According to the book your dreamself was not only awake but quite social. (You'd say extremely busy, but it's clear the stories in the collection aren't intended to occur in one continuity.) The only one not with your dreamself is said to occur ten years in the future (and involves Hakuba, of all people).

Honestly you're impressed. You didn't know carapacians even had a concept of puberty. Most of them are cloned, after all. 

The best one involving you, narratively speaking, is the one where you mess with Bourbon pretending to be your own ghost until he screams like a little girl and tries to hide behind Mouri, in front of Kudou, Kuroba, Sera, and half a dozen Dersites. _That_ would have been a worthwhile use of your dreamself. You could do without the rest of the story, but up until then it's quite good. 

The important thing is, none of the ones involving you are terrible enough that you feel the need to rip them out, though you reserve the right to give anyone you catch reading them hell. Some of the others might be worth a read later when you have more time — several promise to be hilarious. (It's not literally "every possible combination", despite what Hakuba kept saying. It's every possible pairing, most possible trios, and only a handful of larger groups.)

You stash the book under Kudou Yuusaku's pillow where Kudou is likely to find it the next time he comes by. He's right, fair's fair. 

That done with, you do your customary check on the Professor and the Detective Boys to make sure no one is showing signs of dehydration or developing bedsores. The stasis effect of the — ugh — spell has protected everyone from any such thing so far, but it doesn't hurt to be careful. 

 _That_ done with, you go look for someone to accompany you back to LOGAH. You have a backlog of quests to work on, and the buddy system seems to be working out for everyone else. 

**== > THIEF OF RAGE: GET A VISITOR**

You hear the guards chattering about the Heir of Time a good ten minutes before Kudou shows up. You guess he stopped trying to keep it secret sometime in the last week and a half. "Am I getting a commutation, warden?"

Kudou gives you a flatly unamused look as the guard unlocked the door. "Only because we agreed it's unethical to leave you locked up here when there's an assassin with explosives who wants to kill you at large." He looks… highly unenthusiastic. "We also agreed to escort you to your Sacrificial Slab if you want to do god tier." 

That's great, but— "Someone with explosives is after me?"

"The 'Courtyard Droll'. Really short. Already got me, Nakamori-san, and almost Ran, but we all had living dreamselves at the time. Doesn't like you because you killed the 'Hegemonic Brute'."

You don't ask what kind of a name _that_ 's supposed to be. Either of them. Dersite agents have weirder codenames than Black Organization operatives. "I assume you want me to promise to stay away from Akai."

"At least until the game's over and he's awake," Kudou says. He jerks his head at the hall behind him, where the Hondou kid is standing. "Hondou-kun is going to escort you to LORAF, where you can help out with frog-breeding and watching for assassins, and he is highly likely to be able to tell if you're planning something with any chance of success." He frowns. "And there's the building, too…"

"No," Hondou says. "Actually that's under control." He gives you a smile that looks remarkably real. "I hope you didn't need your computer for anything else."

**== > PRINCE OF BREATH: ATTEMPT PROGRESS**

It's sort of embarrassing that both Aoko and Kuroba appointed themselves your assistants, but it's no use denying it — you are not good at this sort of game. The puzzles are… fine, but finding treasure doesn't do anything for you, and you'd rather try to outthink a _person_ , not unknown and probably unknowable game engineers. The less said about fighting underlings, the better. Even Kuroba dragging you along on his planet to "show you how it's done" could only do so much. 

This time, Kuroba waves you and Aoko off as he settles down in your destroyed dining room with an unfamiliar laptop. "Go hunt giclops, I'm going to work on your house."

You blink. "Is that — how on Earth did you get into Bourbon's laptop?" Dear god, is KID a _hacker_ now? Good enough to get into the computer of a criminal/secret operative?

He KID-grins. "With considerable assistance from our Seer of Doom in avoiding any fatal errors."

That's a relief.

"…Though I do want to try destroying an encryption, at some point. But on a burner laptop in case I overdo it."

That's not. 

"You just want to be alone so you can finish checking that book for pictures of the Bard costume," you accuse rather than get into any of that. 

"Shoo."

**== > PRINCE OF BREATH: JUST GO HUNT UNDERLINGS**

"So what's Bakaito's planet like from ground level?" Aoko asks as you fly over the eponymous steppes. "Aoko's seen it while she was building, and passed through briefly, but never really explored. Is it that bright everywhere?"

"No, once you get under the top layer of mirrors, there are a lot of shaded places. That's where the consorts live, mostly." You grimace. "They pick pockets. Though not subtly. From what they were saying, I _think_ Kuroba will need to identify some mirrors which are actually ice, and melt them."

She sighs. "That still sounds more straightforward than calming a sea."

You wonder what your quest will be. Your planet doesn't have any _obvious_ environmental problems. You're probably going to have to talk to the consorts. You don't want to talk to the consorts. 

(The carapacians are bad enough, but at least they _know_ they were created to serve the Game. They're capable of rebelling against their roles. According to the sprites the survivors will have a chance to build a new life for themselves, outside the Game. But consorts?)

(Also, your consorts walk on their hind legs despite clearly not being balanced to do so, and are somehow able to use their front hooves as hands despite the obvious lack of fingers. It's creepy. Kuroba's raccoons are much less disturbing, if considerably more annoying.)

Aoko points. "Look, there's a giclops. Why don't you go in first, and Aoko will back you up if you need it?"

"That's— All right." You equip the staff you ended up fighting with (because surely anyone can hit things with a stick), complete with the ridiculous "damage amplifying" old-fashioned magnifying glass Kuroba alchemized onto the end. "I'll see what I can do."


	14. ==>

**== > BARD OF LIGHT: READ THE BOOK**

In between adding levels to Hakuba's house. 

You meant to just read the part on _your_ powers, and, yes, check the rest for Bard illustrations (because you _know_ Hakuba and tantei-kun are looking for one). But the whole thing is pretty interesting. Parts of it are wrapped in really dense metaphor and literary allusions you half-recognize — you guess the Game doesn't want to make things too easy. And it's not like you don't enjoy a good riddle yourself, but you are disinclined to give the Game any latitude when it is a sadistic game that already insisted you all _die_ to get this far. And made you deal with your own bodies. 

(And makes you kill underlings, who aren't _people_ , but some are people-shaped, and they can be scared. And carapacians are definitely people, and the Game wants you to kill the Black Queen and King, you know it does. You're going to come out of this all twisted up.) (And it sets all the carapacians to killing each other when most of them on both sides are just people who want to have lives, not die in endless, meaningless wars.) (And it destroyed the world, can't forget that part.) (The point is, it's awful and you refuse to appreciate its riddles.)

You have mixed feelings about your own powers as described. Relating to luck, sure, that makes sense, but destruction? Is it trying to say you aren't lucky, you make other people unlucky? If you gave people bad luck, then worse things would have happened at heists, right? The Task Force would have wandered into Snake and company's line of fire, or tantei-kun would have outed himself somehow. And passivity? That makes no sense at all. You're a lot of things, but you're not passive! 

Eventually you decide to take it as an accomplishment — not everything about you is defined or described by your Game role. And if you're not lucky yourself, it means you're just that good through your hard work and skill! …And maybe non-Game-related luck, because some of the incidents… yeah. 

Maybe you're looking at the wrong part of Light. Fortune. Information. (What does luck even have to do with information?) Fortune…

Just as you think you might be getting somewhere, though, what you're currently idly reading gets through to your brain. 

Oh. 

Well. 

That sounds unpleasant.

**== > HEIR OF TIME: READ THE _OTHER_ BOOK**

You are _not_ reading the book. You are sitting in the otherwise deserted meeting room, catching up on building up Sonoko's house, and you are definitely not reading any untoward books someone, and by someone you mean Haibara, stashed in with the passengers. You just glanced through the table of contents. And then very briefly checked out the Hakuba and Sonoko chapter, since they were the ones who'd read the most about everyone else (except possibly Haibara, but not going there) and it was only fair. (They get together over their mutual frustrated lust for KID. There are less plausible motivations.) 

And then, regrettably, you caved to your curiosity and checked what Haibara's bookmark was at, only to find a beautifully executed sketch of you, draped on a bed — no, on a tatami mat, wearing only a towel, making what is probably meant to be an alluring face. You closed the book before you could accidentally read any of the story, and stuffed it under a seat cushion. 

Maybe eventually you'll forget it's there. 

Eventually.

You're just getting bored with building up the house when your phone rings. It's KID. "Now what?"

"You need to work on your attitude, tantei-kun," KID says. "And we need to meet up so you can pick up this book and read about Time powers. It sounds like it can get _very_ nasty if you don't use them _exactly_ right." He pauses. "No, on second thought, I'm going to go see if Hakuba has a scanner around this pile somewhere. We should probably _all_ read this."

**== > SEER OF DOOM: SEE NON-DOOM**

Not that you're complaining about that. You do wonder if the Agents are waiting for something in particular to attack…

For now, though, it's peaceful, apart from Hattori-kun and Toyama-san arguing about whether she should go work on her own quests for a while, and if so, whether he should take time out from frogs and join her. That sounds like a good idea to you, except you and Bourbon would still be tagging along. 

Speaking of whom, he's eying the arguing pair speculatively. Your Doom sense ticks, a little. 

"Bourbon-san, even if that exchange counts as Rage, I don't think trying to steal it would be a very good idea."

He… looks a little embarrassed, actually. "You're right, Hondou-kun. I just don't think I can get a handle on these powers if I don't try to use them."

"You're probably right, but you've only _just_ ascended, and I expect you haven't done many of your planet quests. Don't get ahead of yourself. I don't think doing things out of order would end well." You're not sure if that's a "Seeing Doom" thought or a "logical conclusion about this infernal Game" thought, but you're reasonably confident in it. 

"…This is ridiculous."

You don't argue that. You don't think anyone would argue that, except maybe Sonoko-san, and her only because she both likes to argue and is still angry at Bourbon for the — mess.

(You were busy visiting your Sacrificial Slab and didn't get back to LOSAT until the bodies had all been carried to the wine cellar, but there was still blood and… other stuff… all over the room, and all over the passengers.)

Come to think of it— "It seems rude to call you Bourbon-san, when you were infiltrating the Organization," you offer. At the same time, he did sort of… give up his claim to his cover identity, when he started shooting people. "Is there something you'd rather we call you? Your real name, maybe?"

He gives you an unreadable look. "…Kir's your older sister, isn't she."

" _Hondou Hidemi_ is."

He nods, as if that explains something. "…You can call me Furuya."

There must be a way to get through to him.

**== > SYLPH OF HEART: RETURN TO LOSAT**

You help Kaito carry his piles and piles of printouts of book scans. Hakuba is on his own with the big whiteboard, because he wouldn't explain what he wanted to bring it to LOSAT for. 

(It was originally in his room, used for notes on his… collection of evidence… that Kaito was KID. Since Kaito _was_ , in fact, KID — is? — you thumped him when he referred to it as "Hakuba's wall o'crazy", but honestly, it did kind of look that way.)

En route from the transportalizer to the house, you pass Ran-san and Sonoko-san descending a particularly large tree. They both look slightly scorched, but Sonoko is grinning. "Success!" she shouts, possibly to you. "The great Sonoko-sama has made the trees flower!"

" _One_ tree," Ran says. "And doing them one at a time would take… a very long time."

That's still more progress than you've made, and last you heard Ran hadn't identified her quest. "Congratulations!" you say. "We have some copies of the most relevant bits of the 'powers of the gods' book, would you like yours?"

"There are a few copies of each," Kaito adds. 

They each take their own packet. Ran won't let Sonoko take Kudou-kun's or Bourbon's, even for "just a quick look!"

You move on as a mob of overjoyed squirrel-consorts is closing in on Sonoko.

"Those things are very loud," Hakuba mutters. "Though at least they don't pick pockets."

"That you know of!"

"At least they aren't the… nakkodiles," you point out. Poor Hondou-kun.

In the house, in the meeting room, Kaito gives Kudou-kun the original book and most of the printouts. "I made multiple copies of each of them, but not enough for everyone, and I tried to get the most important parts, but I couldn't scan the whole book, so…"

Kudou looks slightly overwhelmed by all the paper. You sympathize. You felt pretty overwhelmed earlier, and you only got copies of your sections and (at your insistence) Kaito's and Hakuba's. (You were surprised Kaito gave in so easily on that, and didn't even try to get you to promise not to show it to Hakuba. He must not have come up with any Game-power-related pranks or tricks, which is also surprising, and maybe a little worrying.)

"…Good thinking," Kudou says, behind the heap of papers. 

Kaito preens, then goes abruptly serious. "I wasn't kidding about reading up on Time powers as soon as possible, tantei-kun. The introduction to the Time chapter said something about heroes of Time dying a thousand deaths if necessary."

"I will, I will, I will. What's with the whiteboard, Hakuba-san?"

Hakuba sets it against the wall. "It occurred to me it might be useful to have a way to keep track of where people are, who they are with, and what they are doing without having to call to check. If we put everyone's names on it, and people write what they will be doing and a time…"

Kaito snorts. "Even _if_ people update like they're supposed to, we'd just end up calling whoever is sitting here, instead."

"It's a good idea, though," you say. "It would be nice to know where everyone is."

"You _would_ think that, Ahoko."

You kick him in the shin. 

"Maybe we can set up some sort of… phone thing, to do that," Kudou-kun says. "But no need to let the whiteboard go to waste! Let's make a to-do list."

It's still dauntingly long. 


	15. Secrets

**== > KNIGHT OF SPACE: STILL WITH THE FROG-BREEDING**

The ectobiological frogs are getting more and more iridescent, which has to be a good sign. You think. 

After the third time a frog somehow managed to knock Hondou into the water, you decided to send the poor guy somewhere to dry out. (God tier resets didn't seem to be doing it anymore, which shouldn't even be possible.) Apparently losing the Seer of Doom meant you had to accept _two_ replacements to watch for assassins and/or Bourbon treachery — pick two from Kudou, KID, and Hakuba. You asked if that was a trick question.

It quickly becomes apparent that what Kudou really wants is a chance to talk to you not in a crowd, as he allows KID to take off to assist Kazuha in fetching some "particularly jewel-like" frogs without comment, and then stops you when you try to follow them.

You sigh. "All right, Kudou, out with it."

He huffs, but doesn't try to deny it. "I went to go see my Denizen," he starts.

"You _what_? Are you—" Obviously he's okay, why are you asking. "You don't get to lecture me about bein' impulsive anymore."

"You never let me lecture you. And it wasn't to _fight_ it, just to talk." Kudou rolls his eyes, as if everyone has been prancing off to chat with their giant planet monsters before breakfast. "You need the Forge lit, and I need to get these stupid illogical Time powers everything says I'm supposed to have under some sort of conscious control."

"I didn't know you had them at all," you say. Not like you've been able to do much with Space, either, so you're not criticizing. 

Kudou flushes, weirdly. "I've frozen time a few times, unintentionally. Mostly when, um. I was trying to avoid Ran."

Hoo boy. You don't comment on _that_. "So, what's the problem?"

"My Denizen gave me a _riddle_."

"Well I can see how that's annoying, but—"

"A riddle about _Ran_."

Oh. "That's, uh…"

"And the answer to the riddle is the 'real' reason I didn't want to tell her anything!"

"The real reason?"

"That's what it said! Like it would even know!" Kudou kicks a clump of reeds like there's a soccer ball inside. "So now I have to figure out what it _wants_ me to answer—"

Bourbon snorts. "Oh, that's easy."

"Did anyone ask you? No—"

"You wanted something clean."

Kudou freezes. "What… does that mean."

"You wanted her to be normal," Bourbon says. "So you could pretend you were normal for a little bit. It's the same reason I didn't push Azusa-san away even though I knew I could only hurt her — because I wanted to… be near someone standing in the light, and let it reflect on me, and pretend I was there, too."

Kudou glares, but doesn't say anything. 

"But you couldn't keep her around and not pull her into the dark," Bourbon says. "Why do you think she was on Derse?"

Kudou hisses, and lifts his watch hand, but instead of a dart there's a — twist, and Bourbon freezes. Completely. 

"That seems under control," you point out. 

When Kazuha gets back, arms full of frogs, Kudou's gone "to look for Agents" and Bourbon's still frozen. "What happened to him?" she asks. 

"Told Kudou that the reason he didn't want to tell Neechan was to keep her, I don't know, normal? Something about her walking in the light so it'd reflect on him?"

Kazuha considers this for a minute. "Well that's stupid. Ran-chan's not a mirror… maybe a lamp, but not a mirror."

"And here I'd been thinking she was a human being or something," you grumble. 

"Idiot!" Kazuha snaps. "You _know_ what I _mean_!"

You're not at all sure that you do, but drop it. 

"I wonder if he'll unfreeze on his own or be like this til Kudou comes back?"

**== > BARD OF LIGHT: TRY TO CATCH FROGS WITHOUT TOUCHING THE WATER**

You're not trying to not _touch_ the water, that would be silly. You're just trying to not _stand_ in water, since it has occurred to you that a marsh this big with this much water probably has at least a few… ugh… a few _fish_. It's not that big a deal. You can fly, and no one's surprised at you not wanting to wade around constantly.

It's just… actually picking up frogs when your entire body is above the water… can get… a little… complicated.

"Why are you upside down?" tantei-kun asks, and you almost launch yourself "up" _into_ the water, which would defeat the whole purpose.

You get yourself right side up, although still without getting the damn frog. "Keeping my suit dry," you say without thinking. It might be a better explanation if you weren't in reconnaissance black (with a Light symbol on the hat) at the moment. Well, too late now, best not to try to explain it. "Did you need something, tantei-kun?"

He's — well, if he still looked like a child, you'd call that a pout. As it is, more of a scowl, maybe? "Why did — would you have told Nakamori-san, if her father wasn't the head of the Task Force?"

Ooooooohhhhh. Yeah, this isn't about you and Aoko. It's an interesting question, though. "You mean, if there was no chance at all of her turning me in? Hmmm." You think it over. You probably wouldn't have told her if you thought she'd be really angry about it, even with a guarantee she wouldn't tell. You probably wouldn't have told if she'd somehow, incredibly, been a huge KID _fan_ — you like your secrets — though you probably would have teased her, then, dropped hints, dared her to guess.

…To be perfectly honest, you probably _would_ have told her if she hadn't cared about KID one way or the other. Anything but indifference.

…And maybe you would have told her after one of the bad nights, when you found out why your father died, or after one of the close calls. After Nightmare. Or maybe not, maybe you'd have stayed behind your poker face, because your poker face is _important_.

"Maybe, maybe not," you say finally. "You may not have noticed, tantei-kun, but I like to keep people guessing."

"As a matter of fact I _had_ noticed that. What about your snipers? Are they a consideration at all?"

You consider saying they're hardly _your_ snipers, but you know what he means. "They're a consideration in not wanting her anywhere near me at heists." Would Aoko knowing have made her more likely to show up at heists? Quite likely. "That's a reason not to tell her," you agree. "But if I'd been going to tell her, I probably would have before I knew how serious the sniper problem was, so." You shrug. "Still don't know, tantei-kun. But we both know you're not wondering about me."

"Fine." He crosses his arms. "Why do _you_ think I didn't tell Ran?"

You shrug again. "I don't know why you started — probably some very detective-y reason — but I'd guess why you never stopped is… momentum. Secrets take on a life of their own, after a while. You more and more want to tell them, but at the same time it seems more and more important to keep them."

That seems a suitable exiting line, so you drop a smoke bomb to make your exit.

It _plops_ into the marsh.

Tantei-kun raises an eyebrow at you.

"…You pretend you didn't see me do that, and I'll pretend we didn't have this conversation."

**== > PAGE OF VOID: HEAR ABOUT THE CONVERSATION ANYWAY**

You have your phone on silent so you can focus on LOGAS's puzzles for a change, but Sonoko's buzzes, and then she starts cackling.

"What is it?" Aoko-san asks.

"According to Kazuha-chan, _that detective_ tried to ask Hattori-kun why he — that detective — hadn't told Ran his secret, then got mad at Bourbon's proposed answer and froze him in time for almost an hour, and has now stomped off somewhere and is probably trying to ask KID."

Aoko snorts. "I don't think _that's_ going to get him very far. Bakaito keeps secrets for the sake of having secrets, I don't think he'd be much good at telling why someone who _doesn't_ keep secrets would keep a secret."

You've lost track of where you were in the puzzle grid. "No, that's not right," you say before Sonoko can. "Shinichi didn't… Shinichi never used to lie, or he used to say truth was very important, I mean. He did keep secrets." You roll your eyes. "He would keep secrets _a lot_. Most often about what he was thinking about cases before he revealed it to everyone in a big dramatic show."

" _Such_ a drama nut," Sonoko sniffs.

Maybe _that's_ why he didn't tell you? He didn't want to reveal an incomplete deduction? Well, that's not really _enough_ …

No. No, you're not speculating, you're not rationalizing, you're not _obsessing_ , you're focusing on your own work, and _waiting_ for him to _explain_. Which he may even be planning to! Once he understands it himself. Figures the mystery otaku would be really stumped by the inside of his own head… No, _off_ the subject.

You turn firmly back to the puzzle. "No more gossip until I'm at least past this door."

**== > WITCH OF BLOOD: DISCUSS SECRETS**

Sera looks at her phone and snorts. "Kudou-kun seems to be asking other people's opinions on why he didn't tell Ran-chan."

Hondou blinks. "To keep her out of it, I assumed. If she didn't know there was anything there, she couldn't dig deeper into it and get herself in trouble."

Spoken like a past master of digging deeper into things and getting oneself in trouble. Sera only _hmmm_ s, probably having trouble understanding the issue from her family background of people who keep everyone else in the dark about everything really important unless it's unavoidable or operationally necessary.

You do not comment on how part of the reason is you put your foot down whenever you saw him wavering. Ran is the only one who might deserve to hear that from you, and you're going to let Kudou have it out with her first. In fact, that's enough of the subject. "As entertaining as the track-and-field emus are, Hondou-kun, I'm assuming you nominated me and yourself to assist Sera-san for reasons beyond birdwatching?"

He nods, then catches his feet on a particularly high hurdle and flies forward to smack face-first into the ground.

"I think he's cursed," Sera mouths at you, before going to help him up.

He doesn't seem to have suffered any serious damage. "I wanted to talk about Bourbon. Furuya-san. He's — he has this obsession, he's not thinking, he's obsessed with Akai-san killing his friend when _we don't even know that Akai-san did_."

Sera looks unconvinced. "I didn't go on a self-sabotaging revenge trip when I thought Shuu-nii was dead."

"You weren't in a position to, and did anyone even tell you any of the details? Did you even know a NOC was supposed to have done it?"

She makes a face, which probably means no. "Okay, point."

Hondou nods. "How many murders within that organization, or involving people fighting it, actually happened the way it seemed at first like they happened? It's all secrets on top of secrets on top of more secrets."

Akemi-nee's death was straightforward enough — except, no. She was trying to buy you both out of it, and you only found out later. Pisco's death wasn't that complicated? Or Calvados's? But you take his point, all the same. "What are you getting at?"

"If we can just get Furuya-san to _see_ that — see that he's being irrational, and _stop it_ — then we get another competent person, instead of a liability we have to watch all the time. And I think we should be able to do it? Between us and Kudou-san, surely we can get him to listen…"

Sera makes another face. "I'm not convinced, but I'll try if Kudou-kun is willing to."

"He will be," you sigh. "He'd rather work with Bourbon than against him, given the choice."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> talk talky talk talk but fear not i am working my way towards another traumatizing chapter
> 
> if you like that sort of thing
> 
> and if not there's a really ridiculous situation lined up for after that, and neither Heiji nor Kazuha even knows about the Romances book yet


	16. Cunning plans

**== > SEER OF DOOM: PREPARE TO PERSUADE**

Since no one wants to take Furuya-san to LOSAT when he hasn't actually promised anything, you host the meeting at your apartment in the Land of Lines and Needles instead. You feel a little guilty satisfaction at making other people spend time in your terrible Land. It _is_ bright and sunny — the better to see the gleaming needles of various sizes sticking out of the landscape. Since everyone is god tier, they can fly and don't even have to walk any of the tightropes. (Not that you walked any tightropes, either — you climbed down into the gaps they spanned, instead. You have an accurate perception of your own agility.)

The disadvantage is your apartment doesn't have any rooms the size of Sonoko-san's, never mind enough chairs, but you arrive to find Kuroba-kun has helpfully stuck an extra room on the side, and stocked it with clones of your single kitchen chair. Hopefully he didn't use too much grist doing it. 

"Is this stable?" Furuya-san asks, looking out one of the extra room's windows. "It doesn't seem to have much scaffolding."

None of the rest of your… tower has collapsed so far, but it does look rather precarious. "Hopefully," you say. "I'm going to alchemize some juice."

Kudou-kun arrives five minutes before the designated time, Haibara-san in tow; Sera-san is precisely on time. 

**== > SEER OF DOOM: PERSUADE**

"Thank you all for coming," you say, passing the juice around. "It occurred to me that even if the Organization is mostly a non-issue now, we would still benefit from sharing what we know. Because," you give Furuya-san a very pointed look, "it seems very, _very_ common for people to know _misleading half-truths_." Come to think of it you give Kudou a pointed look, too, only to find him giving Sera a pointed look, which she is returning. Haibara just looks tired. Wasn't anybody involved in this investigation telling the complete truth to anybody else? You guess there's plenty of reason to be paranoid, but still!

Fine. You push on. "For example, until recently, I understand a number of deeply involved people believed my sister, a CIA agent, killed Sera-san's brother, an FBI agent, to preserve her cover." (Not that anyone told you even _that_ version until even _more_ recently.) (You carefully do not look at Sera-san. Try not to wonder, again, what her attitude would be if Kudou hadn't admitted the whole truth of the matter.) "No one has told me exactly what grievance you have with Akai-san, but am I correct in concluding it was not a dissimilar situation?"

Kudou shrugs off the pointed look he gets from Furuya-san. "They deserved to know as much as I could tell them about why they'd been _shot_."

(It's nice to hear he came to agree with that line of argument, which Kuroba-kun presented after Kudou found the listening device. He'd only been planning on explaining to Sera-san.)

Furuya-san doesn't argue that point. "It's not the same," he says instead. "Even if he _wasn't_ still alive. Kir had to kill him, specifically, as a set loyalty test, while observed. She was cornered. Rye—" He breaks off, then picks up again. "And neither of them should have been there, but he had no business there at all."

Well, yes, the more you learn about American law enforcement, the more questionable the FBI's presence looks, but that's not the point. "But you didn't know what really happened, is my point. You're just — believing the surface story." Whatever it is. "I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that you not take any action until you _know the whole story_."

"Whatever happened, he won't lie to you about it," Kudou says. "Not with the Organization gone." Sera-san nods agreement.

"Everyone here is a liar," Furuya-san says. "I don't see how I could ever think otherwise."

Kudou frowns faintly. "I'm working on that—"

It's at this point that several people and a sprite fall through the ceiling, and your Doom sense spikes. Before you can do or say anything a blue blur is flung into you, you crash into the wall, and your vision grays out. 

**== > PRINCE OF BREATH: THIS WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA**

You _knew_ it was a terrible idea, but you couldn't let Kuroba go without you. Kuroba knew it was a terrible idea, but Kudou told him this Vermouth person had used Kuroba Toichi's teachings _for evil_ and then there was no stopping him. You think even Mouri-san knew it was a terrible idea, but you guess she was just so glad to be _involved_ in Kudou's terrible ideas for a change she didn't question. 

(Hattori is hotblooded enough he might not have thought it was a terrible idea if he'd been invited, but since he wasn't, you're sure he'll think it was a terrible idea, too.)

**== > PAST HEIR OF TIME: EXPLAIN TERRIBLE IDEA**

"I think Vermouth — Vermouthsprite — is very likely to show up at the meeting, and this might be our only chance to catch her. She was slippery before and she'll be worse now, but if you surprise her out of nowhere, and you can 'destroy' her luck and her freedom of movement…"

You study your audience. Ran looks anxious, but not argumentative. She's in. KID looks pleasantly neutral, the same expression he's had since you said his father's name. He's in. (If you're going to be using his personal history to persuade him you should possibly start thinking of him as Kuroba.) Hakuba, though, looks dubious.

"I've never successfully immobilized Kuroba or even Aoko-kun when we practiced," Hakuba says. "The closest I got was inducing respiratory arrest, after which I could hardly go practice on consorts. I don't think Kuroba can even point to any cases where he is _completely sure_ his powers had any effect, at all." Kuroba opens his mouth, but Hakuba cuts him off with another " _Completely_ ".

"I agree it would be easier — safer — if we could wait," you tell them. "But two things. First, this meeting does need to happen sooner rather than later, and I don't know what she'll do if she shows up and we don't have anyone prepared to stop her. Second, we're getting more powerful and learning more about how things work here — _she might be, too_."

Hakuba grimaces. "What would we even do, if we caught her? No jail could hold a _sprite_."

You nod. "No. But I can freeze her in time."

"Indefinitely?" Kuroba asks.

"Not all in one go," you admit. "I'd have to keep going back to reinforce it. But that's something I can do."

"Maybe we could even talk her out of — whatever she's doing?" Ran says hesitantly. "If I tried—"

You should never have told her about the 'angel' thing. "That… I don't know if that's possible." You don't even know what she's _doing_. "Maybe we could try. If we catch her."

Hakuba looks at Kuroba. "I suppose you're set on this? Fine. But this is a terrible idea."

**== > PRINCE OF BREATH: EXPOUND ON TERRIBLENESS**

You pick yourself up from where you seem to have flattened poor Hondou-kun into the wall in time to see Vermouthsprite grab for Kuroba's cape but somehow fail to catch hold of it. You're watching more closely when she tries for Mouri-san's cape, and she definitely _passes through_ it. They've got both her arms, now. 

(God tier capes can go intangible when enemies try to grab them in fights. Good to know.)

She doesn't even hesitate, though. The tail comes around, hits Sera-san in the side of the head hard enough to knock her into the wall, then wraps around Kuroba's forearm and _yanks_. The arm bends where it is _not_ supposed to. Kuroba screams and lets go. Mouri-san gets thrown out the window. 

"Vermouth, stop!" Bourbon yells. "What are you even trying to accomplish?"

You lurch forward, trying _again_ to get some sort of "destroy movement" to work. Kudou is trying to get her with his watch, but you guess she's not holding still enough — if you can just hold her still—

She pushes you away without difficulty and, from _somewhere_ , pulls out a gun. "Say goodbye, Cool Guy."

Kudou freezes, wide-eyed—

—Haibara jumps in front of Kudou—

—Kudou jumps in front of Haibara—?

—There's a gunshot—

—Mouri-san screams—

—A flash of light—

—Vermouth is unmoving, _frozen_ , as Kudou collapses back onto Haibara and — another Kudou?

"What the fuck," Bourbon says. "What the fuck."

"Shinichi!" Mouri-san cries. "…Shinichi?"

"Sorry, Ran," says the bleeding Kudou. "You might not want to stick around for this."

"What," the non-bleeding Kudou manages. 

You have no idea what's going on.

**== > BARD OF LIGHT: KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON**

That _fucking_ murderous training-misusing sprite woman broke both the bones in your forearm, and it _hurts_. 

And that… must be a future tantei-kun. A doomed future tantei-kun.

**== > PAGE OF VOID: WHAT**

You catch — the injured Shinichi as his knees give, and lower him to the floor, aided by Ai-chan and — the first Shinichi. "What's going on," you say, voice shaking. "You _said_ she wouldn't hurt you!"

The first Shinichi shakes his head. "I thought—"

"She wasn't," the hurt Shinichi says, and coughs blood. "She never meant for me — for you to be hit. She just wanted to surprise everyone, to get Haibara to jump in front of you—"

"Because that would be Heroic," unhurt Shinichi finishes. "She _still_ wants to kill Haibara?"

Heroic. So this is Heroic. This Shinichi will not revive. "We can get — Sonoko, her powers—"

Hurt Shinichi is shaking his head. "If you save me… I'll die later. Doomed timeline. Doomed player. S'not like we'd want… two of me… around anyway."

No. He is not going to just die like this. He _can't_ just die like this. "Shinichi—"

"S'okay. Wouldn't want to stay. Left everyone else… behind…" Another wheezing breath, turning into a rattle. "N' jus'… _tell_ her…" His eyes slip closed. 

No. _No_. 

The weird light flickers out, and Vermouthsprite jerks back into motion. You tear your eyes away from Shinichi to look at her — she might still be a threat—

You want her to go away. 

You want her to _disappear_.

You could _make_ her disappear. You could do it — Void is at your _fingertips_ —

—But that would be wrong.

You kick the gun out of her hand instead. It knocks a new hole in the ceiling. 

"Angel…" she says. 

"Please — please just don't talk to me right now," you rasp, and turn your attention to Ai-chan, and the Shinichi who is still alive. 

**== > MAGE OF MIND: STEP UP**

Your head is still spinning and half your face looks like a giant bruise, but Kudou-kun is too obviously in shock from having a _double_ show up and then _die_ , so…

"What was that about?!" Bourbon bursts out, apparently at Vermouth. "I don't care how much you want to kill Sherry, killing any player potentially kills _all of us_. I thought you wanted those two _alive_."

Vermouth doesn't reply. She's still staring — either at Ran, or at the dead Kudou, you're not sure. 

"Handcuffs?" you ask, quietly. You should try to take advantage of this weird docility while you can. 

Hakuba produces a pair from somewhere. You try _not_ to think of the Hakuba/KID story in the Romances book, in which handcuffs featured prominently, and take the handcuffs to toss them to Bourbon with what you hope is an easily understandable look. He gingerly reaches for one of Vermouthsprite's wrists, then the other, and then she's handcuffed. Which is more symbolic than anything else, but it's something. 

"Are there any windowless rooms we could put her in?" you ask next. Bourbon gives you a clearly understandable 'how the hell would I know' look. 

"Try the second level up," KID says. He's still kneeling, cradling his broken forearm. "I didn't start putting in windows 'til later."

Eisuke pries himself out of the dent in the wall and sways to his feet, clutching the back of his head. "I can show you… and then I need to alchemize some new glasses…"

"Could you get some blankets, too?" you ask. "Three of them… or four… five… Maybe just alchemize a lot of blankets. And maybe a splint."

"M'not in shock," KID says. "M'fine."

You give that all the attention it deserves. 

Eisuke leads the way, only a little unsteadily, and Bourbon and Hakuba steer Vermouth out of the room. Maybe _she's_ in some sort of shock. You're not going to ask Eisuke to fetch her a blanket, though. 

Okay. Danger is at least out of the room. KID's injured and in obvious pain, but pulling himself together. Ran and Kudou and Haibara are still all huddled around the dead Kudou, and show no obvious signs of pulling themselves together. 

You pull out your phone and call Hattori. "We need you and Toyama-san on LOLAN as fast as possible," you say, and hang up before he can ask any questions. 

**== > KNIGHT OF SPACE: HOW FAST WOULD THAT BE?**

Pretty damn fast. Faster since Kazuha remembered it was just a two-gate jump, which cut out the transportalizer treks. 

"You're sure Sera-san didn't give any hints?" she asks as you fly down the outside of Hondou's expanded house. 

" _Yes_ , I'm sure, I've told you a hundred times already." You're not sure why Sera so urgently needs you and Kazuha here, but that was a deadly serious tone. 

Down to the weird sticking-out part of the building, in the broken window, and—

You take in the room at a glance, moving things first. KID, sitting in a chair with a blanket over his shoulders. Hakuba, trying to splint KID's arm. Hondou, slumped in another chair with his face in his hands. Bourbon in the doorway, expression flat. Sera, kneeling on the floor facing Kudou, Neechan, and Haibara, who are all sitting on the floor against the wall wrapped in blankets. Sera has a first aid kit and is applying bandages to Ran's scratched-up legs. 

Large hole in the ceiling, not matched by holes in roof. Dents in the walls. Some blood spatter, too much to just be from Ran's legs. _Blanket-covered body-shaped lump on the floor_.

(Two people not visible, KID and Hakuba would be the ones going to pieces if it were Nakamori—) "Is that Suzuki-han?" you blurt. 

"No, she's still on LOSAT with Aoko. I called checked," KID replies, voice remarkably natural for someone getting his apparently broken arm tugged around. "It's a… he was a… a doomed timeline tantei-kun. Who came back from a doomed timeline to prevent it."

Neechan shudders, and buries her face in Kudou's shoulder. Kazuha's there in an instant. You head around to check on Kudou. Haibara is sandwiched between them, face hidden behind her knees, shaking. 

"Upstagin' me again, huh?" you mock-complain. Kudou's hands are covered in blood, and so is the front of his shirt and pants, though it doesn't show up well against the red. "Kudou, you listenin'?"

"I screwed up, Hattori," he rasps. 

"This is _Vermouth_ ," Sera says, evidently close enough to hear. "She was in a class by herself _before_ she was a sprite."

"I don't know why I didn't sense it coming," Hondou says despondently. 

Kudou shakes his head. "Because _I_ introduced factors inhibiting detection and scrambling probability."

A beat. "Oh," Hondou says. "Oh. I guess that _could_ interfere."

" _Crap_ ," says KID. 

You have not had a chance to read the whole book of powers, but you know inhibiting detection is probably Void? Well, whatever. "Kudou, you wanna magic yourself clean, or do we need ta borrow Hondou-kun's shower?"

It takes a good half-hour, but the rest of you get Kudou, Ran, and Haibara cleaned up and shuffled into Hondou's cramped living room, where there is less seating but also less blood spatter, and no body. The god tier cleanup/reset also erases all the cuts on Ran's legs, which makes Sera facepalm. Between them, Sera and Hakuba explain what the gathering here was about to begin with (which you knew) and about Kudou's trap (which you did _not_ ).

"You are in _so much trouble_ , Kudou," you say. "…As soon as you stop being all… traumatized."

"I'm not traumatized."

"You died right in front of you, you're supposed to be traumatized."

"Well, I'm not."

You sniff. " _Pretty_ sure you are."

"I am _not_!"

The exchange is at least getting a half-smirk from Haibara. So that's something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope this properly delivered the trauma


	17. Days in the past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ==> Author: Procrastinate on resolving crisis, write scenes from entry sequence instead

**== > DAYS IN THE PAST (BUT NOT MANY)**

**== > KNIGHT OF SPACE: FAIL TO 'SORT OF HALF-PLAY' A COMPUTER GAME**

It seemed like a perfect solution. You could play the computer game (yawn) with Kazuha like she wanted, but have the excuse of having to go be polite at your parents' early dinner party (which Kazuha would be at if she weren't _pretending to be sick_ , what is the big deal about this game) so you wouldn't have to play _constantly_. Once you connected a whole menu of stuff for the server player opened, she'll have plenty to do, and maybe when dinner's over she'll have figured out the fun parts and you can skip straight to that. 

Then you start hearing weird thuds. No one else seems to notice them. Then your phone starts buzzing silently in your pocket, but you certainly can't leave dinner with your parents (and Kazuha's parents and Otaki-han) to answer your phone. 

Then a freaking _kendo-mask floating thing_ wafts out of _your room_ and towards the dining table, and you have to hastily excuse yourself and chase it back before anyone notices, _what the hell is even happening_.

Things get even worse when you get into your room and find it wildly deformed in shape, with large, weird pieces of equipment cluttering it up. The kendo-mask-thing bobs up and down agitatedly. One of the weird equipment things has a digital countdown in progress, at a little over three minutes.

You finally answer your phone. "What the _hell_ , Kazuha?"

"Finally, idiot!" she yells. "You need to take the cruxite dowel and the punched card—"

"How did a _computer game_ do this to my _room_?"

"I don't know — we don't have time for this — it says—"

"This is — how is it—"

" _Heiji_!" she yells. "You _need_ to do this, _now_ , or it'll be too late!"

"Will that make this kendo hallucination go away?"

"I — yes. Yes it will. Just please do it!"

You do not find that convincing, but she sounds _frantic_. And in the crunch, this feels like what you should be doing. "…Okay. Where are they?"

Not quite three minutes later, you smash a weird red bowl on the corner of your desk.

The floating kendo-mask-thing turns into a floating kendo-mask- _ghost_ -thing.

The afternoon sunlight vanishes from your window, replaced by softer light.

Something ceramic breaks in the dining room.

**== > PAGE OF VOID: KEEP PROMISE**

Sonoko's phone (though obviously not her internet connection) died before she got to the "equipment-deploying", and she left her charger downstairs and won't be able to get away for at least half an hour, maybe longer if she has to explain to Makoto-kun. She made you swear up and down to just follow the "entry" instructions right away no matter what, and she'll call you back to answer questions as soon as possible. She sounded unusually serious, life-and-death serious, so you agreed and only tried to ask for clarification on how you could do anything when the game hadn't given you any sort of window to do anything in. She said you'd see. 

Then actual, physical equipment materializes. You'll have to climb over the "totem lathe" if you want to get to your bed, the "cruxtruder" is in the middle of the kitchen, and the "alchemiter" is taking up most of your father and Conan's room, crushing the futons. Goro is on top of the refrigerator, hissing. You half-expect your parents to come running up to see what the racket is. 

You try to call Sonoko. It doesn't go through. 

Matter of life and death. You _promised_.

You'd like to get your parents out, but you don't think you could without them realizing something is going on, and then they wouldn't leave. Maybe being down in the agency will keep them clear. You call Conan-kun, and leave a bright, cheerful message telling him Sonoko is taking you swimsuit shopping and you've arranged for him to spend the evening with Agasa-hakase — that should keep him safely away from… whatever is happening. 

You message Shinichi asking him to wish you luck. 

You detach the charm from your phone (something helpful, the instructions said, but not something you can't live without), and you strike the top of the cruxtruder with all your strength. It emits a flashing blue light and a "cruxite dowel", and it starts a countdown.

A few minutes later, tossing a blue board in the air to kick it in half, you glance out the window and see _fire in the sky_. But only for a second, because then the sky isn't there anymore.

There's a different sky instead, dark blue, with no familiar city lights. Something is _moving_ out there. You turn away hurriedly, and try calling Sonoko — still no connection — as you run down to the (suspiciously quiet) agency.

You don't know what you're hoping to find. The sky was on fire.

"Mom? Dad?"

For a long moment you're paralyzed in the doorway, looking at your father slumped over his desk and your mother collapsed on a couch. You don't want to move. Don't want to check. 

But there's no one else. So you check. They're both alive, but you can't wake them.

Your phone rings, and you answer without looking. "Sonoko?"

" _Ran_ ," Shinichi says, nearly _sobs_. "Where are you? You're all right?"

"I'm all right," you say slowly. "I don't… I'm not sure where I am, exactly… it's dark outside…"

"How— No. Did someone take you there? Are you alone?"

"Dad and Mom are here, but I can't wake them up." You look out, and then quickly away from, another darkened window. "I don't think there's anyone else in the apartment or the agency, but something is moving outside." You are pretty sure it's a some _thing_ , not a some _one_ , but you don't say that to Shinichi.

"…The agency?" He sounds… careful, now. "You said you weren't sure where you were?"

"I'm not sure where the _agency_ is," you say. "I know it doesn't make sense! It's this insane computer game of Sonoko's! One moment everything's normal, the next we're somewhere — in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night! Or not normal, there was the equipment appearing and the fire in the sky—"

"Fire in the sky—?"

"—But now I have no idea where we are or how we got here or why Dad and Mom won't wake up or when Sonoko will get her phone charged or—" You stop yourself before you can babble any more. "I don't know what's happening. How did you hear _anything_ was happening? I thought I just asked you to wish me luck…"

"Ran…" Shinichi says slowly. "Fire in the sky — there was a meteor, Ran. I wasn't expecting you to pick up. The agency — where the agency was — it's _gone_."

Before you can figure out how to react, something leaps out of the darkened stairwell at you. You shriek, and kick it, and it… turns into a scattering of… geometric shapes.

"Ran!" Shinichi is panicking on the phone again. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"I'm okay, there just… there was a little… monster thing. It's gone now." Gone into **ash grist** , you somehow know. "Shinichi, I don't understand what's happening at all. I think maybe — maybe you need to look into this computer game."

**== > SYLPH OF HEART: MULTITASK**

You hang up on Kaito, even though he's freaking out at you. Not that you're blaming him for freaking out that your house has disappeared, it's a little gratifying, but not helpful. You can keep track of him with the server program, and give him the instructions as soon as you deploy the equipment.

 _Until_ then—

You call Hakuba-kun back.

"Hello," he says, vacantly.

"Hakuba-kun, can you please give the phone to Akako-chan? Aoko wants to _talk_ to her."

Yesterday she came up to you and Kaito as you were leaving school. She gave Kaito a tarot card, but told him _she_ would keep everyone safe. She set up a time to play the game with you. She didn't say anything about meteors, she didn't say anything about whatever she's doing to Hakuba-kun, and she _let you believe this was all to save the world_.

Your sprite says it's not to save the world. You want to not believe it, but you know it's true.

"She says she will be available to talk when you are done reacting," Hakuba-kun says robotically, and hangs up on you.

Ugh. You are going to call back right after you find a place to drop the alchemiter in Kaito's cluttered mess of a—

What.

Is.

That.

 


	18. Days in the past, continued

**== > HEIR OF TIME: RECEIVE NEW INTELLIGENCE!**

According to Kir, about eighteen hours ago, two-thirds of the high-ranking members of the Organization got suddenly pulled off whatever they were doing and ordered to search for ancient ruins with "amphibian iconography".

**== > HEIR OF TIME: WHAT.**

Again according to Kir, that was also the reaction of most of the high-ranking members of the Organization. She thought at first it might be some sort of bizarre joke or elaborate trick to root out moles, but after seeing Gin and Vodka looking up maps of natural areas, and seeing Gin's _expression_ , she decided to check in with the FBI to see if they knew anything she didn't, and hand off copies of the weird pictorial references she'd received. Subaru figured you wouldn't mind their using your house.

Through pure luck, you arrived in the middle of the meeting in search of an extra candy thermometer for Agasa-hakase's teach-the-Detective-Boys-caramel-making experiment. Needless to say you made your excuses immediately.

"We don't know if this is going to come to anything, Conan-kun," Jodie-sensei said. "It's just… a photo of a carving on a wall which might be frogs."

"Which _that person_ must think are _very important_ ," you pointed out. "And I think I've seen something like them before.

While the Americans discussed Kir's impression of Vermouth's reaction (not acting surprised at all, did this mean she was the trigger for this? or was she acting?) and whether to ask Bourbon if he knew anything (Subaru said maybe, the rest of the FBI said hell no) you searched family albums, and now you've found a few old photos of your parents standing in front of a wall of at least stylistically similar carvings. The label doesn't say where.

Okay. You could try calling your parents, or you could try to deduce the location — Ran's calling your Conan-phone — from the rest of the information in the album — should probably check the message — what other places did they visit—

That's… kind of a strange message. That she'd call unprompted like that, and say what she was doing, something designed to put you off—

You have a bad feeling about this.

You drop off the album in the library, where the meeting is going on. "Here. I'm going to run back to the agency real quick."

While you're en route, she messages your Shinichi-phone. Luck for what? Well, you'll be there soon—

You turn the last corner, and a giant flaming rock falls out of the sky—

Onto—

Onto—

Onto—

—There's nothing but fire and smoke and—

—You fall off your skateboard but no one notices because—

—Because of the meteor—

You try calling Ran, because you have to, and she _answers_ , she's — fine?

Somewhere else?

Talking about Sonoko's weird computer game?

You head back towards your house. There's nothing you can do here.

**== > WITCH OF BLOOD: INVESTIGATE COMPUTER GAME**

You could alternatively investigate how it is meteors could land in Beika with _no one_ having seen them coming, you're equally unqualified in both fields, but why not! Kudou seems to be focused on the computer game. (And investigating the computer game means not dealing with three terrified kids huddled on the sofa while the Professor tries to get through to their families to find out if it's safe for them to go home…)

So, the computer game. SCase. Suzuki Sonoko was handing out copies left and right for some reason. Kudou claims he'll look at that angle, he wants you to start up the "server" program, he'll start up the "client" program over in the Kudou mansion, and you can test a few odd claims he's heard.

"Odd claims from who?" you ask, starting the program installation.

"Ran," he says shortly. "Are the kids still there? They probably shouldn't try to go home on their own, it's chaotic outside."

"And what were you doing outside? Yes, they're still here."

"I tried to go back to the agency. It was destroyed. But I'm on the phone with Ran, and she thinks she's still _in_ the agency, just… the agency somewhere else."

Oh, _hell_. "Are you sure it's really her?" You know he's sure, or he'd sound a lot worse, but you aren't sure he _should_ be sure. …What a strange piece of software this is.

"This is too implausible to lie about!"

And you aren't sure even the Organization could arrange a _meteor_. All right. "I'm sending a connection request now. What is it you want me to check?"

"Um… just… see what the control interface lets you do. I'm going to try to talk to Sonoko and see what she knows."

Well, _that's_ not weird at all.

**== > MAID OF LIFE: FINALLY GET YOUR PHONE CHARGED**

Emphasis on the _finally_. It felt like every member of your family stopped you over one thing or another, and that was before you got to Makoto-kun, who is understandably concerned about your abandoning him to your family's tender mercies. 

(You really wish Makoto-kun was one of the _Heroes_. You're sure he'd be really good to have around — probably more useful than that silly British detective always chasing KID-sama around, and _definitely_ more useful than Hondou-kun, who is cute and all but never did much more than trip on things that you saw. Sadly it's not up to you. But the sPassengers patch should keep Makoto and everyone else safe until you can win the game and save the world.)

You finally escape back up to where you've left your laptop. It looks like Ran is all right, anyway — she seems to be messing around with the alchemiter, interspersed with karate-ing imps into oblivion. And occasionally talking on the phone? Who could she be calling? …That would actually pick up? Well, maybe the game is making Kudou be more available somehow? There's a weird… bloblike thing that must be her sprite — you wonder what she could have prototyped it with? Her parents are in the agency, both on a couch, with a blanket tucked around them. You can't imagine they'd sleep through this naturally, so… you guess sPassengers knocks people out? You guess that's… convenient? It might have been helpful to know beforehand, though…

Your phone has just gotten enough power to be usable when you get an incoming call — from the Edogawa brat, of all people. You sigh and answer. "Look, brat, I don't have—"

"Sonoko," Kudou says, in his most serious detective voice. "What is the deal with this computer game?"

You do not have time for this. "Look, Kudou-kun, it's a really long story—"

"Ran is _missing_ , Sonoko!"

"Ran is fine." And has just created some sort of headlamp-thing, it looks like, the better to explore the rather dark place she's ended up in. "I know this is really confusing, but I talked to Ran, I _know_ you've been awake on Derse." You feel a little bad about not explaining to Ran what her dreams meant, but she clearly still thought they weren't anything but dreams.

" _What_."

"Look, I need to work on Ran's house. You should get yourself home and get ready to play, too! Where are you, anyway?"

"I'm home, which is a _good thing_ because it might be rather _difficult_ to travel right now considering the _meteors_."

Meteors. Crap. You kind of hoped those were metaphorical — or could be stopped completely. "Then you'd better hurry up and start playing so we can save the world, Kudou-kun! I'll mail you the instructions."

You hang up on him, and try to call Ran. Why was he calling on Conan-kun's phone, anyway?

**== > WITCH OF BLOOD: INVESTIGATE _VERY WEIRD_ COMPUTER GAME**

You look at the screen where you've used the cursor to drag a section of Kudou's wall "out". You look out the window, where a rectangular _thing_ sticks out from the side of the Kudou house.

You move it back and forth a few times.

You pinch the bridge of your nose.

You call Kudou back — on his Conan phone, since he's probably still connected to Mouri on his Shinichi phone. "I assume you're seeing this, too?"

"Yes. Put that back, its going to fall with nothing to support it." He sighs explosively. "There's nothing for it. I'm going to have to follow Ran in."

"How did I know you were going to say that." You detach a toilet and move it to his closet. Because you _can_. You don't try to argue, though, because you don't really have any better ideas. Nothing about this is making any sense. "I'll get started. You didn't get anything out of Suzuki-san?"

"Just the instructions I'm forwarding, and… she implied I was _supposed_ to play the game, too. To _save the world_. She didn't seem as shocked about the meteors as she might have been, either. And she said something about… well, never mind."

"Uh huh." At least there's plenty of room in the house to drop the ridiculous equipment. "This stuff is actually showing up, right?"

"Yes…"

You considerately refrain from dropping anything down near where the _mysterious meeting_ is carrying on — wouldn't want Kudou to have to try to explain anything. He might sprain something.

According to Suzuki's instructions, she was expecting Mouri to be able to strike the "cruxtruder" hard enough to open it herself, but for others the server player might need to step in. Fine. You hit it with a chair, and—

"Oi! Haibara, was that my first-edition Holmes?!"

"But I thought this would be just what you'd want in a guide, Kudou-kun?" At which point you're distracted, and almost miss his creating, and then breaking, a gold pair of glasses. At which point the Kudou house vanishes from sight out the window.

The approaching meteor, however, does not.

"Kudou-kun? Did Suzuki-san say anything about the game being _associated_ with suddenly appearing meteors?"

"No, but — oh, hell. I'll call Hattori. He can get you in." He pauses. "There may be time to send the kids—"

"No," you say, still looking out the window. "It's not the only meteor. I think — they may be safer coming with me. Wherever we're going."

There is definitely time to warn the kids, or at least the Professor, as Kudou hangs up with Ran and tries to call Hattori (and tries again to call Hattori, and discovers all the now-unconscious people in his library, and tries to wake them up, and fails to wake them up, and tries yet again to call Hattori, and can't get through to Toyama either, and then gets attacked by a little pipe-smoking monster and shrieks like a first-grader before soccer-ball-ing it into oblivion). You don't, though.

He picks up the phone he dropped when the thing attacked. "I can't reach Hattori. How do you feel about Sera-san?"

You've had a chance to think about this now, and, "You can't do it?"

"I could, but this — Sherlocksprite thing you gave me is insisting it would doom us all, and it, it feels—"

 _It feels wrong_ , Mr. Logic is refusing to say. And you can't disagree. "…Try Sera-san."

**== > MAGE OF MIND: HAVE YOUR DAY GET WEIRD**

It's been a supremely weird day already. Mary woke you up with instructions to pack up, you were moving in two hours. Usually you get a little more warning than that. The sky outside was… strange. You can't quite put your finger on how. 

Then, far stranger, Mary had you give the taxi driver Shukichi's address. You thought you were supposed to be keeping your distance. 

"Are we staying here?" you asked after the taxi pulled away. 

"For a while," Mary said. 

Your bags all got left in Shukichi's bedroom. You hope you're not exiling him from his own room. 

It's good to see Shukichi, but there's been a strange tension between him and Mary all day — he asked "You didn't tell her?", and she said "I thought you didn't believe me", and he said "That has nothing to do with whether you should tell her" and they both clammed up when you asked _what_. Then Shukichi said he'd invited his sort-of girlfriend (who would be his fiancée if either of them had any sense) to meet his family. You expected Mary to be furious, and leave immediately, but she only grimaced. 

"You know this isn't a guarantee," she said. "It might just make it slow."

"It's a _chance_ ," he said. 

Neither of them would explain that, either. Then Yumi-san arrived, and Shukichi persuaded you all to play some convoluted American board game while he prepared dinner. Yumi-san seems very nice. (You considered advising her to just tell him there's a shogi game going on in a wedding chapel and strike while he's confused.) But there was still this strange _tension_ , and you thought you saw Mary steal Yumi-san's mobile phone and turn it off? Which, you assume she has a good reason, but Yumi-san is a police officer, she might be getting _important_ calls.

Also, Mary closed all the curtains and put a CD on rather _loudly_. 

So you're a little relieved when Conan-kun calls and Mary doesn't say anything to stop you answering or heading into the other room where it's a little quieter. Although if you think about it his calling you is also weird. 

"Conan-kun, what's up?" 

"Sera-san," he says, and that is 100% Kudou Shinichi. "Do you have a copy of that computer game Sonoko-neechan was giving out the other day? Both discs?"

"Um… yes, I think so." You check your laptop bag, and yes, there they are. "Why?"

"Good." That sounds… very relieved. "This is going to sound very strange, but I need you to start up the server program, connect to Haibara Ai — I'll give you the information — and initiate her game. This is very urgent, so I'll talk you through it now and explain later, all right?"

"…Okay."

It quickly becomes apparent that this is far from a normal game — you can see the _actual house_? Conan-kun does indeed talk you through it, pausing only to talk Haibara through it on another phone. You can _drop actual objects_ in the actual house? Haibara yells at him (loud enough for you to hear) to stop micromanaging, she knows what she's doing. There's a out-of-control fire next door?

You finish deploying the equipment before you ask. "Conan-kun, is the Kudou house on fire? Are you okay?"

"Oh, I'm just fine," he says grimly. "And the house isn't on fire, it's _moved_."

"What?"

"You'll see. Just hit the top of the cruxtruder with something heavy — Haibara will take it from there. Oh, except when the… floaty thing comes out, you need to drop something in it. Maybe a Kamen Yaiba doll, there should be some in the living room."

The _huge magic cursor_ is apparently not visible to the three junior detectives huddled on the couch or the Professor trying to make phone calls which don't seem to be going through. Genta notices it stealing a Kamen Yaiba doll, but just stares after it. 

Two things happen when Haibara breaks the weird blue "cruxite" Erlenmeyer flask. The Professor and the other kids collapse, and the light outside _changes_.

"Whoa, hey, everyone just dropped!" you say, alarmed. "Except for Haibara-chan…"

"They'll be unconscious," Conan says grimly. "And unwakeable. That was expected."

You zoom out. _Moved_ , he said. "Conan-kun, is your house also in a weird place with giant test tubes full of blood?"

He snorts. "Of course not, that would be too easy. I'm in a weird place with steam vents and giant clock faces in the rocks. Ran-neechan is in a weird place that looks like the set of a ghost movie. I have no idea where any of these places are in relation to each other, and—" He breaks off. "My sprite — it's some sort of game guide — my sprite says you have to start playing the game, the only way to get out is to play the game, and there's nothing we can do— Are you safe for now?"

You pull back a curtain. The sky looks orange, and you see smoke, and lights falling in the sky. "…For now."

"Good. Just keep building the Professor's house upward, I'll find someone to get you in, I promise — I still need to get in touch with Hattori, I know Kazuha-san was planning on playing — I need to call Ran back now."

He hangs up before you can decide whether to tell him he's out of character. 

You peek back into the living room. Mary raises an eyebrow at you. 

She _knew_. You don't know what is happening, but she knew it was going to happen, and that's why you're here. And she must have told Shukichi yesterday. You want to demand an explanation, but you can't. 

You go back to the computer, and 'building up'.


	19. Days in the past, continued

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmm, some of this stuff isn't 100% consistent with what I put in the notes earlier... ah well. It happens.

**== > THIEF OF RAGE: WHAT**

You need to message Azusa-san with your apologies — you won't be able to bring an old (but newer than hers) computer over after all. You'll need to come up with an excuse other than "need all resources to urgently research ruined temples with amphibian iconography for malevolent crime syndicate", though. Even without the syndicate part, that's… out there. You're not 100% sure it isn't the result of Vermouth screwing with everyone for some reason. 

Before you can compose a message, though, Vermouth calls you. On your civilian phone. "If you have an opportunity to play that game, take it," she says without preamble. 

You blink. Surely she doesn't mean the computer game. "What game?"

"SCase."

…She does mean the computer game. "I'm meant to be researching unidentified ruins."

Vermouth laughs knowingly. "That game will give you more answers than any amount of research, Bourbon. Go play the game."

You consider telling her not to involve Azusa-san in whatever she's up to, but that would be showing weakness. Weakness Vermouth undoubtedly already knows about, but she'd still make you pay somehow. You'll have to try to keep things under control yourself. 

(Amphibian iconography. _What_.)

Azusa-san is happy to let you wait and see how the game works, rather than dropping off the computer and going as you originally planned. Unfortunately, it turns out you can't do much without connecting to another player. Azusa-san seems to be expecting this, and calls Mouri Ran.

Hopefully you'll get a chance to get Edogawa's take on the game. There's no amphibian iconography on the packaging…

"No, Ran-san, it's Enomoto Azusa — you said you might be able to help me get in touch with a server player?" Pause. "What? But aren't you playing with Suzuki-san?" Pause. "Of course, but — I'm sorry, I think I'm not understanding something?"

You lean in closer in time to hear Ran say, "I'm not understanding a lot of things, either." She sounds… a little shaky. "I don't know how to explain what I do know without sounding crazy… I'll send you the instructions Sonoko gave me."

This does not sound like someone talking about a game. You gesture for Azusa-san to give you the phone. "Ran-san, is something wrong?"

"No — well, yes, but—" She breaks off. "There's nothing you can do, Amuro-san. You should just start — start playing the game."

And then the world goes insane.

**== > BARD OF LIGHT: WHY**

There's a lull in the monsters for now, you're sitting next to Jii, and your sprite is guarding the dovecote. Time to try Hakuba again — or Akako, presumably. You sort of get why she'd need to influence Hakuba to get him to _start_ playing, but surely she could stop now? Or at least accept your damn server connection so you can get them out of there, no matter how many _feelings_ Aoko has that more people should be involved. 

You try the house phone, just to be different. You're probably more likely to get Akako directly and not have to talk to drone-Hakuba. Ring once… ring twice… ring three times… connect, with a clatter and a thump that sounds like something falling to a carpeted floor. 

"Call the police to this address!" says a woman, not Akako or Hakuba's housekeeper. In fact, that sounds like… she was at that painting-murder incident… Satou-keiji, that's it, from Division One. 

"Call — what?" you say, totally off balance. Why are the police at Hakuba's house, and why do they want you to call the police? They _are_ the police!

"The reception was a trap," Satou-keiji continues quickly. "There's a girl here using — drugs, hypnotism, I'm not sure, but she can exert near-complete control over male victims. Women seem not to be susceptible, and some men can resist if—"

"Heads up!" another woman hisses, and then there's a gunshot _way_ too close. You drop your phone. 

When you pick it up again, the woman is shouting in the background — "You could have killed someone, Yamamura!" — and a male voice, much closer, is declaring "Koizumi-sama does not want you doing such things!"

Well, worth a shot. You cough into your shoulder, and assume Akako's voice. "Give the phone back to Satou-keiji, Yamamura—" (keiji? keibu? play it safe) "—san."

"Yes, Koizumi-sama!"

Satou sounds distinctly wary. "Who is this?"

"Kaitou KID," you say, because why not. "I have a pretty good idea what Koizumi-san is capable of. Do I understand correctly that she is... holding a large number of police officers in the Hakuba house?" _Why_? Why were they there to start with?

There's a long (for the situation) silence, but eventually she apparently decides talking to you is worth a shot. "Also at least four civilians. There's a half-dozen of us from Tokyo Metropolitan, three from Nagano Prefectural, one from—"

"Koizumi-sama!" Yamamura cries in the background. "But… weren't you on the phone?"

"Shit," Satou says, and then there are shuffling noises as the phone is moved again.

"Kuroba-kun," Akako purrs. "So nice to hear from you again."

You'd panic over her outing you if there would be any point to it. " _You_ hung up on _me_ ," you point out. "Why are you holding a bunch of cops prisoner? Can you give me any compelling reason I _shouldn't_ call the police for them?"

"Because that could distract Hakuba-kun and sabotage Aoko-chan's gameplay," Akako replies smoothly. 

You snort. "I don't know, Akako, I think if you really tried you could be a _little_ more transparently manipulative."

She laughs. "Oh, call if you like. It won't make any difference. I have the house heavily warded, and they're _very_ busy."

…Because of the world being destroyed, right. Which these cops will escape, assuming Akako ever accepts a server connection. You can't object to her saving people, even police, but— "At least tell me why." 

"My crystal ball indicated it would smooth matters when dealing with a… later complication."

Whatever _that_ means. "Well, did you have to mind control them? Couldn't you just have knocked them out? It seems like it'd be much less stressful on everyone..."

She hangs up on you again. Hopefully that means she'll knock everyone out before anyone gets hurt — assuming that Yamamura person hasn't accidentally shot someone already. You groan and thump your head back against the wall, wondering why you're feeling responsible for police officers you don't even _know_. At least Nakamori-keibu is safe at home.

**== > PAGE OF VOID: WHERE**

Azusa-san was the one who had the game, you know, but Amuro-san is the one to pull a knife and slash through the cruxite knot she was trying to untie, and he's the one who stays awake.

…It's probably just as well, actually. You have a hard time picturing Azusa-san fighting monsters, but something tells you Amuro-san won't have any problems. Plus, he's a detective, so he ought to be able to work things out on his own without hearing all your attempts at guessing, so you can get back to all the other calls you need to make.

You tried calling Conan-kun as soon as you hung up with Shinichi, but his phone was busy. You hope that's a good sign, or at least not a bad one. Then you had to check in with Sonoko, and then Azusa-san called, to say nothing of the monsters and trying to look around outside a little. 

Time to try again. This time he picks up immediately. "Ran-neechan!"

"Conan-kun, hello — are you somewhere safe?"

"I'm at Shinichi-niichan's house!" he says brightly. "It's in the Land of Steam and Watches, so I'm all safe from meteors. Haibara-san is playing, too, so the Professor's house is in… another land, she hasn't told me the name. I have a Sherlocksprite!"

That's... on balance, that's a relief. Seacucumbersprite says entering the "Incipisphere" is the only way to escape, but you'd still rather _children_ didn't have to actually play. "That's good, Conan-kun. Is Subaru-san there?"

"Yes, but he and his friends are all asleep! Shinichi-niichan isn't asleep, but he can't talk right now, he was really busy making sure Haibara-san got in safely, and now I think he's trying to call Heiji-niichan."

Ah. "Sonoko did say Kazuha-chan was playing the game, too…" So either she's in the Medium, and Hattori-kun is left behind and probably freaking out, or _he's_ in the Medium, and probably very busy. Either way, no wonder Shinichi is having trouble getting through.

"…I don't think Sonoko-neesan told Shinichi-niichan that." Conan-kun sounds worried.

"I'm sure they're okay, Conan-kun. They can take care of each other." Or at least the server player can take care of the client player.

"Oh, but that's right! Shinichi-niichan said I should ask you if you got the server program running yet? Because I'm in the game and Haibara-san's in the game, but Sonoko-neesan isn't and neither is Sera-neesan, and we don't know what's going on with Heiji-niichan, and I still have an unused server program but no one else I've talked to does…"

So Sera's already been pulled in, too? You're not even surprised. "I did get it running, but Azusa-san called — she needed a server player, so I brought her in. Well, Amuro-san is the one who stayed awake…" You hear some unidentifiable _thud_ noises. "Conan-kun?"

"…Nothing, Ran-neechan." He takes a deep breath. "So, um, Shinichi-niichan talked to Sherlocksprite, and when people's houses get built up high enough to the, um, the _second gate_ , then you can walk right through to your server player's land! If they're both built high enough. So Shinichi-niichan says I should be Sonoko-neesan's server player, and then you'll be able to come here in just two jumps!"

**== > ROGUE OF HOPE: WHEN**

Heiji _should_ be out exploring his Land. It looks very mysterious from the little you've glimpsed — misty marshes under a gray sky, with things moving in the reeds that might be consorts or might be the _frogs_. (You're really looking forward to seeing the frogs.) Or, he could be fighting underlings, or alchemizing new and interesting things! Instead, he's back in his room swearing at his computer trying to load the server program. He's not making any progress to speak of, but he'll only stop to race out to the dining room when underlings get too close to the sleeping adults. 

You should never have told him you could see fires from your house. They aren't even close. 

(Yet.)

You… were kind of expecting things would start _improving_ by this point. You know you do make it into the game, you saw yourself in the clouds wandering blue-green valleys talking to giant singing salamanders. You _know_ you and Heiji, Ran-chan, Conan-kun, Sonoko-chan, Sera-san, and Kudou-kun, and the other girl you met on Prospit, and some other people you haven't identified, and hopefully not Hakuba Saguru-san but Sonoko is pretty sure it's him, will be meeting and talking and questing and progressing. You _know_ that. 

But what you don't know anymore, what you're realizing maybe you didn't know at all, you just assumed, is that playing the game will _fix everything_.

Heiji's on the phone now — either Kudou-kun or Edogawa-kun, you assume. 

You call Sonoko-chan.

"Kazuha-chan! How's it going on your end?" Sonoko sounds… frazzled. 

"Heiji's doing great except for loading the server program," you say. "I'm fine, just…" Just alone watching the ever more ominous sky. "You were starting with Ran-chan, right?"

"Yes, and she's doing great. She finally got the server program and brought that detective Amuro-san in, which I was _not_ expecting, and then there's _another_ chain that started up I think because Kudou couldn't wait to find out what was going on before trying to follow Ran — that's Kudou or possibly Conan-brat, then that weird Haibara girl who lives with Agasa-hakase, then Sera-chan. Sera-chan isn't in yet."

"And you?"

"Kudou is having the Edogawa-brat bring me in, and it _cannot be too soon_."

"A meteor?"

"No — well, maybe, the whole area is getting pretty hot — but the more immediate problem is my _family_. I swear Uncle Jirokichi is running interference for me or someone would have dragged me out of my room by now. When the equipment deploys and I have to leave the room I'll have to have Makoto-kun bodyguard me until everyone passes out."

That does sound challenging. One advantage of being alone in the house, you guess. "Ne, Sonoko-chan…" You stop, but go on before you can lose your nerve. "Have you… seen any signs of how we're supposed to fix things? I kind of thought… that as more people started it would get better, but it just seems to be getting worse."

Sonoko makes a growling noise. "I have _not_. Maybe the whole group needs to get in — everyone, to close the loop. Maybe that will do it."

"I guess if Conan-kun is bringing you in now, you can ask your sprite, right?"

"Right…"

**== > HEIR OF TIME: WHO**

Sonoko yelled at you — Shinichi-you — when you offered to talk her through entry, which you guess is fair, since she originally wrote the instructions you'd be reading to her. You'll still be ready to call if she freezes, but… she knows what to do. So that will be Sonoko taken care of.

You really, _really_ wish you'd reached Ran before she'd brought Bourbon in. Not that you would have left Bourbon and Azusa-san high and dry, but this _complicates_ things.

It would complicate things a lot less if Bourbon would _answer his damn phone_. You wouldn't want him as Sera's server player — _Sera_ would want him even less — but he could at least get Kazuha, you'd trust him to get Kazuha in. But he _isn't answering his phone_.

Hattori will get his server program running sooner or later, but you still have two more people to bring in and Bourbon is _not answering his phone_ , and you're going to have to call someone else, aren't you.


End file.
